


Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That.)

by candygramme



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Science Fiction, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:03:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candygramme/pseuds/candygramme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote a story called "5,000 Light Years from Home" some time ago. I had poor Jensen kidnapped by aliens and put in an intergalactic natural history museum in suspended animation for 300 years until bold captain Jared rescued him. However, I got to thinking that there almost definitely would be problems once they were back on Earth. Happy Ever After doesn't happen straight away, and I wondered what kind of problems there might be with settling into the future. This is that story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That.)

“For the last time, Jared, No!” Jensen, usually soft spoken and easy going, was getting really tired of the way Jared wouldn’t leave it alone. “I don’t want someone boring holes into my head. I like my brain the way it is, thank you.”

“But it’s so much better for controlling Ladybug. We’d be safer. We could go further out.” Jared was wearing his most soulful, hangdog expression, and while usually that worked on Jensen like a charm, on this one topic it was failing completely. For a moment, Jensen thought that he was going to drop the subject, but then he saw the new idea hit as Jared’s eyes began to sparkle again. “Besides, think of the music you could create.”

Admittedly, that was a low blow. Jensen lived for his music. Guitars hadn’t changed much in the years he’d been in stasis, and although there were genres of music that he couldn’t experience without the neuroports he was so strongly averse to getting, there was enough of the familiar music around that he barely even registered his lack.

“Look, can we drop this? It’s Sandy’s wedding, and we’re supposed to be her honor guard, not spend the day fighting with each other.” Jensen rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the stiffness that arguing had created.

In truth, he was adjusting well to his jump from the end of the 20th Century to the year 2300.The five explorers had made a fortune from the technology that they’d already brought back from the little planet in the Gray sector, and had made several more trips since the one in which Jared had first found Jensen, a silent specimen in a deserted museum of galactic natural history. They’d shared the money they’d received six ways, and had finally decided to take a break from exploring and do some of the stuff they’d always wanted.

For Chad and Sandy, that meant finally getting hitched. Chad’s parents had been angry with him for heading off-planet after his demobilization, instead of returning home to marry the girl they’d selected for him and enriching the community’s gene pool, but now that Sandy had voluntarily undergone tests to show the superiority of her gene stock, and was already well into her second trimester, the elders at the little druid sect from which Chad originated had become enthusiastic in welcoming the little Venusian into their family, so today the two of them were to be married and Sandy would become a member of Chad’s family. For her, Jensen knew that was a huge gift. Her own family had been wiped out when she was very young when Venus had been attacked by the Grays in the opening battle of the Gray Wars. She had survived because she had been visiting her aunt on the moon, but she was the last of her clan. Now, through Chad, she’d found a home amongst a group of people very similar to those with whom she’d grown up, and she was glowing.

Jared had turned away, nodding at Jensen’s words, but the look on his face told Jensen that the discussion was far from over, and he sighed, unsure in his own mind why the very thought of getting the neuroport implants installed filled him with such dread. Everything that Jared said was true. It would make their voyages much safer if he could truly interface with his ship. He would at last be able to experience sensomusic, and the feelies that had replaced the movies he’d known in his youth.

He’d been able to persuade Jared just once to fly over what had been Dallas before the Gray Wars, and the radiation counter had chattered so loudly that his pilot lover had of necessity turned back, landed them safely at Naval Base Atlanta and then held him while he cried for his lost family, his lost life. 

Now, watching Jared getting into his SpaceFleet dress uniform, he felt his heart swell. Jared was tall, well muscled and graceful. He was handsome, loving and funny, and it still made his belly turn liquid with lust to look at him. Even now, he still had trouble believing that Jared was his.

The SpaceFleet dress uniform was a sleek, close-fitting affair in midnight blue with sparkling silver nebulae on the shoulders. Made from some fabric that felt like silk to Jensen, it stretched, allowing full range of movement, and yet served to insulate the body, keeping it at an even temperature in extremes of heat and cold. As Jared zipped it up and straightened to start attaching his medals, Jensen gave a low wolf-whistle.  
“What?” Jared frowned. “You got something stuck in your teeth?”

“No, dumbass. In my day that was one way of signaling approval. I was just passing comment on how well that catsuit of yours fits you.” Jensen grinned, half in and half out of his own garment. Since he had never been a member of SpaceFleet, he wasn’t entitled to wear the uniform, but as he was a member of Sandy’s honor guard, she had supplied him with one that was almost the same, but merely lacked the designations of rank.

“It’s not a catsuit!” Jared was shocked. “Catsuits are for chicks. It’s a… it’s a uniform.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Believe that if it makes you happy.” Jensen gave a little gurgle of laughter, and Jared uttered a curse and smacked the back of his head before turning back to complete his preparations, grinning.

The little interlude seemed to have cleared the air between them, and all seemed peaceful as they finished getting ready for the ceremony. It didn’t take much longer before the two of them emerged from their room to step onto Jared’s brand new hoverpad and head for the sacred grove where the handfasting would take place.

The hoverpad was Jared’s brand new toy, and made possible by an application of the stasis field that Steve had invented. It was a small, remote controlled, disk-like pad which, once programmed would take its passengers wherever they wanted to go. As they stepped onto it and pressed the start button the stasis field held them securely upright until the pad arrived at their destination. Jensen thought it was the coolest thing ever, and Steve was becoming wealthy in his own right from the invention of it. 

Landing at the edge of the oak grove where the wedding was to be celebrated, Jensen felt the stasis field release him, allowing him to step down from the pad and follow Jared along the path into the grove. The majestic old trees had been lined with green ribbons and sweetly scented white flowers. As the two of them moved along the trail, they could hear the sounds of partying ahead. 

“I’m going to miss Sandy,” murmured Jared, so softly that Jensen wondered whether he’d been meant to hear it or not. 

“Yeah. Chad too.” In truth it had taken him some time to warm to Chad, who was both snarky and crude, but after Chad had recovered from his experiences battling the Grays’ weaponry, the two had developed a bond. Chad had begun to teach Jensen about his beloved engines, and finally handed over responsibility for the engine of the Ladybug to him. Despite his lack of neuroports, Jensen had taken very well to the task, and there had been no incident since he’d assumed the role of flight engineer.

A very unladylike squeal split the air as the two of them moved into the central clearing, and Jared was only just in time to field the small, presently rotund person who hurled herself at him and flung her arms around as much of him as she could manage. Chuckling softly, he held Sandy’s shoulders while he checked her out. Seven months pregnant and glowing with health, Sandy McCoy was a definite advertisement for motherhood. Her color was high, and her hair, now long and glossy, tumbled onto her shoulders, caught up in a wreath of silver intertwined with gardenias and ivy leaves.

“You’re here,” she squeaked. “Now we can get started on this wedding thing.”

Chad, wearing his own dress uniform, came over at that moment, followed by Steve and Christian. Holding out his hand, he reached for Jared’s, but Jared brushed it to one side and swept his ex-crew member into a hug. “Finally giving up and getting yourself hitched, Murray? I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Jeez, Chewie, you know how hard that woman can punch? It just isn’t possible to say no to her. Once she decides something, that’s it - end of story.” Chad’s fond look belied his statement, and although Sandy menaced him with an undeniably bony fist, she didn’t seem all that disturbed by his words.

“Hey, wait a minute, you two.” Jensen was frowning. “I thought you weren’t allowed to see each other before the wedding. Isn’t it bad luck or something?”

“What century are you from, dude?” snickered Steve. “Oh, wait…”

Taking pity on him, Sandy, who had snuggled in between him and Jared, smiled up at him. “No. Not really. Not these days. We don’t have to have a dowry before someone will marry us either.”

“A dowry? What the fuck’s a dowry?” Jensen squinted down at her, puzzled, and Chad gave a whoop. 

“Too bad you don’t have a dowry attached, girl. Millionaire like me could have had their pick of all the girls. It would’ve sweetened the pot to have you bring in some change.” 

“Hah! Like I didn’t get equal shares of the booty.” Sandy raised her fist menacingly, feminine wiles traded for competent SpaceFleet brawler. 

Chad skipped nimbly out of her reach, and not a moment too soon. Cackling, he hid behind Christian, who suddenly found himself with an armful of pouting bride.

“Good grief, children. Settle down.” He was grinning as he fended her off, and Chad let out a snicker as she kicked Chris’s shins in an effort to break free.

At that moment, a group of acolytes from the grove came to lead Sandy away, and the hostilities seemed to cease, at least for the time being. As she went, Chad’s father appeared at his side. “Chad, it’s time to take your place at the center of the circle,” he said, giving the four visitors a smile and ushering the group towards where the circle stood ready. The women had already vanished into the woods, and as Chad made his way to the altar standing at the center, his four friends took their places, forming the curve of a horseshoe within the circle of greenery and flowers that had been set up for the occasion.

The men of Chad’s family arranged themselves within the circle to either side of the four to form the horns of the horseshoe, and as they stood waiting, Jensen became aware that he was being studied intently.

“You’re the man from the past?” It was Chad’s father who finally asked the question. Jensen smiled and nodded, unsure where the conversation would go, but the man merely bade him welcome, and then there was no more time.

The troupe of women was slowly approaching the circle. The priestess was leading, and following her was Sandy, now dressed in a white robe covered in green embroidery. Jensen heard Chad’s intake of breath as she moved towards him, and smiled inwardly. The man was so gone it was adorable.

As the women spread out to form a circle around the inner horseshoe, the priestess laid a broom at the opening of the horseshoe and moved to stand beside the altar.

The ceremony was brief. The two lovers were bound at the wrist with a rope made from mistletoe and ivy. A cup of some strong spirit was passed around, and they all drank. Finally the pair jumped over the broom and led the assembled guests back to the reception.

Much later, tired and rather drunk, Jensen sat leaning against Jared, lazily watching Chad and Sandy dancing, when Chris and Steve, who had been playing the music for the gathering, came to join them at their table.

“Steve and I have been thinking.” Chris was definitely the worse for alcohol, and although he wasn’t slurring his words, his high color and unfocused eyes gave him away.

“That makes a change.” Jared smirked as he stroked his fingers through Jensen’s hair.

“Shut up! We’ve decided that there’s no time like the present. We’re gonna settle down.” Chris waved his arms wide, almost knocking over the half-filled glasses that were on the table.

“What do you mean, ‘settle down,’ dude?” Jared’s fingers paused in their movement, and Jensen closed his eyes, hoping that was only temporary.  
“See, Steve’s originally from Mars. His folks went up with the second wave, and he was actually born there, in New Upplands Vaspy.“ Chris had sat up straight, and was making a great attempt at explaining himself. Steve merely sat by and listened, a lazy smile on his face.

“That’s easy for you to say,” smirked Jensen.

“Monkey boy, you have no idea,” said Kane with a laugh. “Anyway, Steve’s just bought himself a parcel of land on the edge of the Tharsis Bulge. We’ve decided to set up a resort for tourists, with entertainment in the bar and a saloon that the miners vacationing from the Asteroid belt can come to when they wanna cut loose. I think we’re gonna take a break from boldly going for a while and concentrate on music.”

“Awww.” Jensen felt a lump in his throat at the thought of his two friends moving away. “Gonna miss you like crazy.”

“You can come visit. I’ve got plans for getting you up on stage with us.” Steve gave Jensen a wink, and Jensen flushed.

“Well, that ought to slow me down,” he complained. “You know how I feel about performing in public.”

“Nonsense,” grinned Chris. “All you need is more booze. Where’s the waiter when you need one?”

Another round was soon brought, and the conversation turned to the pros and cons of the new digitron that Steve was learning to play. He was adamant that it would make a breakthough in his musical style, while both Chris and Jared were convinced that the guitar was a better instrument. When they said goodnight and set off to return home to their rented apartment, they had no idea under what circumstances they would next meet each other.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Chris and Steve called them early the following week to announce their departure. Jared was the one who fielded the call through his implant, but he patched it through to the senso so that Jensen could join in the conversation.

“You sure you’re gonna go through with this?” Jared was feeling a little bereft as the two friends he’d come to rely on gave them their forwarding address and expressed their desire to see them on Mars.

“Come on, man, it’s only next door. You can hop on over any time you decide to. Me ‘n Steve don’t stand on ceremony, you know that.” Chris was fiddling with the comm unit plugged in behind his ear, a sure tell that he was anxious to get going, while behind him, Steve could be seen going through the pre-flight checks that were so important.

“I don’t know why you couldn’t build yourself a bar right here in Atlanta,” said Jensen, sounding despondent. “There’s plenty of troops to make you wealthy, and you’re right here at the gateway up into space. It would be perfect.”

Kane snickered at him. “Sorry, monkey boy,” he said. “It’s all arranged. Steve’s from the Tharsis Bulge, and he’s got a really cool business plan together for getting his home settlement on the map as a resort for asteroid miners on R&R.” He paused for a moment to gaze fondly at Steve, who had just sauntered over to lean on his shoulder and make a couple of adjustments to the comm unit. “Steve’s holding is smack in the middle of the Tharsis Mons, ‘bout 500 km from Ascraeus Mons, so the view is pretty fuckin’ special. It’s gonna be a really popular location once we’ve got it all organized.”

“Well, have a good jump.” Jared gave the two of them a smile and a wave and Chris nodded.  
“See you on the flip-side,” he said, and cut the connection.

Jensen had raced up the spiral staircase in the corner of the living room, and out onto the roof. Craning his neck, he watched forlornly as the Piñata Novia rose up into the sky and then shot out of sight, swallowed by the hazy horizon.

He stood staring into the heavens long after the little ship had disappeared into the ether. After a while, Jared came up to join him, a little worried at his absence.

“You okay, Jen?” he asked, coming up behind Jensen and sliding one arm around to hold him against his chest.

“I… I dunno,” whispered Jensen. He hadn’t yet relaxed back against Jared, and that made Jared worry a little. He knew that Jensen was feeling a little depressed now that the few souls he’d been with since they’d discovered him were dispersing. He felt Jensen’s shoulders shake a little and bent to kiss his neck, hugging him closer.

“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” he said, voice soft and deep against Jensen’s ear. “I know it’s all new…”

Jensen turned around, turning suspiciously bright eyes onto Jared. “It’s not just that. I feel like I don’t have anything left to hang onto except for you. My mom and dad are gone… all the guys I used to know, and now I’m clinging onto you, because I’m scared. What am I gonna do, Jay? What will happen when you suddenly get fed up with being with the monkey boy?”

“Ain’t gonna happen, kiddo.” Jared pulled him close and buried his face against Jensen’s neck. “I love you. That’s for keeps.”

“What? Even though I’m a whiny old man?” There was a faint smile twisting Jensen’s plush lips, and Jared answered it with his own beaming smile, dimples creasing his cheeks.

“Yep. I guess so.” Jared saidd. “Guess I can always get earplugs.”

“Hey!” Jensen punched his arm hard enough that Jared gasped.

“Oh, bitch, it’s on!” 

The moment passed as the two of them indulged in a wrestling match, rolling on the floor as they vied with each other for dominance. When they finally collapsed on their backs, panting a little, Jensen seemed to have regained his calm, and Jared congratulated himself that he’d helped his love over the blues.

~*~

In the weeks that followed, Jensen buried himself in his music, recording every song he could remember from his previous life onto the cubies so that the world could listen in and become reacquainted with what the DJs were calling ‘classical music’. Jared was spending a lot of his time in his workshop, trying to develop an interface that would enable Jensen to serve as his second in command on Ladybug without having to have the dreaded implants he feared so much. 

Lacking the implants didn’t seem to be holding Jensen back too much. In fact, in some ways it gave him an edge as he reinterpreted the music he’d loved, adding flourishes with some of the modern technology but retaining the pounding rhythms and urgency of the originals. Music had moved away from the primitive rhythms of 20th Century rock, and he was having great fun bringing it back to a world that had forgotten it.

Jared, on the other hand, was going stir crazy. He’d been in the military for five years, and then headed out on the adventure that had brought him Jensen. He was totally unaccustomed to doing nothing, and although he had enough money now that he would never need to work again if he didn’t want to, he missed SpaceFleet with its constant discipline and excitement.

Always an adrenaline junkie, Jared couldn’t be satisfied by tinkering with what he scathingly called toys. He craved action, and as the days passed he became more and more withdrawn and grouchy, until Jensen knew that if he didn’t do something soon their relationship would be over.

Jensen had tried talking to Jared, but his refusal to accept that he could find fulfillment the way the others in their group had, by settling down to start a family the way Chad and Sandy had, or opening a bar the way Steve and Chris had was incomprehensible to Jensen. In vain he asked Jared just what his dream actually was. Jared couldn’t answer him, because he didn’t know. As his discontent grew, Jensen finally told him rather sulkily that he wanted to go visit Chris and Steve and see if they could suggest anything that would hold his interest.

When Jared, apparently happy to have something concrete to do, kissed Jensen and agreed to go with him, Jensen felt the first stirring of hope that they could get through this together now that the others had all gone their separate ways. He gave Jared a beaming smile and flung his arms around him. “I love you,” he said, hugging Jared hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs.

“Whoah! Slow down there!” Jared staggered back a little. “I didn’t think it was that important to you.”

“Are you kidding?” Jensen’s eyes opened wide. “That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me in two weeks.” He ran his fingers over Jared’s jaw, gently caressing. “And you just said more words to me in that one sentence than all of the others put together that you’ve said to me…”

Jared cut him short, pulling him close and kissing him fiercely. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I just…” He pulled Jensen against him and kissed him again, rolling his hips and dragging a gasp from Jensen.

“Oh, God, Jay, I’ve missed you,” mumbled Jensen, burrowing in against Jared’s neck and nipping sharply as he left a claiming bruise there.

“I’ve been here,” said Jared, frowning as he wondered what Jensen meant. He’d been there with Jensen, he was sure. Thinking hard, he tried to remember when had been the last time the two of them had made love, and it suddenly dawned on him that it had been before Chad and Sandy’s wedding. Closing his eyes, he slid his hands under Jensen’s shirt to smooth over firmly muscled flesh, inhaling the scent of him and wondering what was wrong with him.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I really do.” 

“You’re bored. I realize that. You need some excitement.” Jensen nodded, sure now that this was the answer to Jared’s morose behavior. “We’ll just have to have Chris take you hood surfing on his skimmer around one of Steve’s much vaunted volcanoes or something. That’ll perk you up.”

Laughing, Jared flipped him off. “Come on out to the Ladybug with me. I want to try out the new comm equipment, and you’re the only one I can test it on successfully.”

The moment was left behind as the two of them, in harmony for the first time in a while, got themselves ready for the trip over to the spaceport where the Ladybug was parked. It had begun to rain as they boarded Jared’s hoverpad, and Jared turned on the shields. It never failed to fascinate Jensen as he watched the raindrops splash against the transparent shield and slide away behind them as if they were surrounded by glass. If he stretched his hand forward, he could slide it beyond the shield and feel the lashing wetness as they swooped through the sky, and watch the sparking of lilac fire that encircled his wrist as he reached through.

“You’re like a little kid when you do that,” smirked Jared, watching him as he tried to capture a raindrop. He never failed to look baffled as he withdrew his hand to find it perfectly dry once more.

“It’s interesting.” Jensen said, gleeful as he poked lavender sparks from the dome that surrounded them. “Look.” He wrote, “I love Jared,” in sparks that left the words hovering like ghosts in the afterburn before dissipating as they plunged on through the dim day.

By the time they arrived alongside the Ladybug’s hatchway, both Jared and Jensen were laughing, as happily at ease with each other as they had ever been. 

It had been a while since Jensen had been out to see the Ladybug, and he greeted the little ship with mixed emotions, remembering the circumstances that had led him here to her and to Jared. He felt a lump in his throat as he thought back to his first experiences on the ship. There had been so much excitement going on at first that he had not had time to sit and really understand his situation, let alone grieve for the things he’d lost, and these days he was only just beginning to understand the enormity of everything that had happened to him. The friction between the two of them had not all been due to Jared, he knew that. He’d been a little brittle as he tried to come to terms with the loss of his previous life.

Turning to Jared, who had been running through the power-up checks, he took his hand and kissed the knuckles. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry?” Jared turned to frown up at him from his position at the console. “Why? What happened?”

“I’ve been kind of a bitch lately. Sorry,” murmured Jensen. “It’s just hard to get used to the fact that I can’t go home any more. I’m still trying to come to terms with that.”

For a moment, Jared just gazed up at him, a little baffled, but then his face softened, and he pulled Jensen down onto his lap and hugged him. “Baby, I’m sorry,” he said against Jensen’s soft hair. “I grew up in a crèche, and I didn’t have the kind of family you did.” He pressed a kiss against Jensen’s temple. “I forget how very alone you must be feeling, because as long as I have you alongside of me, I’ve got everything I could ever need.”

Jensen didn’t say anything, but Jared felt him sniffle a little and hugged him tighter yet. Jensen relaxed into the warmth of strong arms, feeling a connection with Jared once more that had been missing for the past little while.

When they finally separated, they both seemed more relaxed than they had been for weeks.

The installations that Jared had been working on were based on a set of 200 year old specs that he’d found in the archives of the Smithsonian and copied, and he was anxious to try them out, unsure if they would even work, unused to working with wires and chips. He needn’t have worried. When he turned on the little console he’d built, it flickered to life, and although he needed to adjust the calibrations to take the signal further from the one he was getting from the main drive, it worked like a dream. Before too long, he and Jensen were running drills with the aid of flight simulators he’d tapped into from the Space Traffic Control computer in the terminal.

They finally paused in their efforts when Jared’s stomach gave a loud and insistent rumble just as they were negotiating between a pair of gravity wells, and the shout of laughter that Jensen gave caused Jared to twitch the control enough to send them spinning to their doom as the opposing stresses disintegrated them.

Swiftly Jared sent a mental command to freeze the program and pushed away from his post, pulling the connector jack from his neuroport.

“It’s late,” he said.

“Actually, it’s early,” smirked Jensen.

“Fuck! Oh three hundred hours?” Jared dusted his hands together and rose to his feet. “Take me into the terminal and find me sustenance, Number One, or I’m gonna be forced to eat you.”

Snorting, Jensen laid aside the headphones he’d been wearing. “It’s still raining. You wanna take the hoverpad, or would you rather walk over and get a little damp?”

“I think speed is what we need. We’ll take Short Round and stay dry,” decided Jared, making Jensen laugh. He’d been telling Jared about Indiana Jones on their trip to the Smithsonian, and despite the primitive viewing medium, it seemed that Jared had enjoyed it enough to christen his hoverpad.

“Short Round it is.” Jensen sent the command to unlock and open the door and then powered down his console, preceding Jared out of the Ladybug and onto the hoverpad as it rose to Jared’s summons.

~*~

Making their way into the terminal towards Mama Sam’s Cantina, Jared slipped his arm around Jensen, tucking him in against his side as they went. The spaceport was never really quiet, but 3am was certainly not one of the busiest times of day, and they were soon established at a booth, a pitcher of actual beer between them. Jensen had rejected the usual synthahol early on in their relationship, and Jared could afford the real thing these days. He was developing a taste for it now. Sam, an attractive older woman with a curvy figure and a no nonsense way about her had come to take their order, and was now returning with their food. Jared had gone for the full breakfast, everything from orange juice and cereal through eggs and bacon to waffles and syrup. Jensen, rather more sparing in his appetites, had opted for a Spanish omelet, and a drink made from Venusian foonbeans that, as far as he was concerned, left coffee way back in the dust.

“How are the trials going?” asked Sam, setting down the plates and perching next to Jared on the bench seat. “Getting it right for the old-timer here?”

“Hey! Right here!” Jensen protested.

“Just sit there and look cute, baby,” smirked Sam. 

“Yeah. We’re just running some training sims right now. We’ll be taking off in a day or too,” announced Jared. “It’s all systems go as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ll miss you, honey. My inventory will start to fill up again, without you to eat me out of house and home.” Sam rose to her feet, ready to go back to where they could see a couple of newcomers up against the bar. “Don’t be strangers now, you hear me?” 

“We won’t.” Jared was grinning, but his tone was serious. “I was hoping I could get you to provision the ‘Bug for me.”

“Glad to. Just leave me a list of what you need and when you need it, and I’ll get it all ready for you.” Sam sauntered away, pausing to turn and raise her middle finger to Jensen when he whistled his appreciation of her departing rear. “Oh, honey, I’d break you in half,” she said, winking as she resumed her retreat.

Jared snickered as she went, and Jensen blushed a little. “Hah! She’d be so lucky,” he growled, reaching for his glass and taking a long swallow of his New Corona. 

“Yeah, she would.” Jared reached to put his hand over Jensen’s. “Too bad that she’ll never know, because you’re mine, and I don’t share.”

The beaming smile that Jensen gave him spoke of the love he felt, and Jared pushed away his empty plate, raised his glass and silently toasted him. Jensen felt his belly liquefy, warm and shuddery with the feelings that his lanky lover instilled in him.

“I’ll always be yours,” he mumbled.

~*~

The next several days were full of preparations for their trip. Jared took Jensen through the steps for preparing to take off, showing him everything he could think of, including the actual piloting, although he knew that without the com implants it would be virtually impossible for Jensen to take the ship in for a landing.

Mama Sam was as good as her word, and had the little ship kitted out with everything from food to cleaning materials before the end of the second day, and as she handed Jared the list of provisions and the bill, she made sure that she pointed out the fact that she’d included lube.

Jensen was mildly scandalized by that, but Jared merely laughed and smacked her shapely ass. “You gonna sleep in between us, or do you insist on going home afterwards?” he asked her, eying her up and down with appreciation.

“You know, it might be worth it, just to watch Alona hunting you down afterwards. She doesn’t take kindly to competition.” Sam chuckled and arched her eyebrow. Alona, her hotheaded partner, was well known for taking exception to customers who tried to pick Sam up. She was a tiny, tough ex-space marine who had served with Jared during the Gray Wars, and Jared knew exactly how skilled Alona was with a laser.

“Aww, come on,” he said, whining a little, but with his finest dimpled grin firmly in place. “She can come too. We’re good to share.”

Jensen had buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. “Dude, you know she’s gonna tack 20% onto the bill for harassment if you aren’t careful,” he murmured.

“Honey, you ain’t as dumb as you look. That’s a fine idea,” smirked Sam, and turned to depart the ship with a chuckle and a wriggle of her behind. “I’ll check with ‘Lona and get back to you on the foursome,” she said over her shoulder as she climbed onto her speedster to return to the terminal, and Jared raised a large hand in farewell.

Once she’d gone, and they’d checked through the inventory, Jared turned to Jensen. “Looks like we’re ready to go,” he said. Guess the next thing to do is call Chris and Steve and tell ‘em we’re on our way.”

Nodding, Jensen stepped up to the comm unit and put on his headphones. Biting his lip, he went through the motions of calling up the ship’s computer and sent the call out to Mars. It was early morning on Mars around the Tharsis plateau, and he knew that Steve would be up and about, but didn’t think it was likely that Christian would have surfaced yet, so it came as a surprise to him when Chris answered the call, happily brandishing a plastipod of synthahol.

“Tharsis morgue, you stab ‘em, we slab ‘em.” Chris was fairly obviously happily under the influence, and Jensen grinned. The one virtue of synthahol was that it didn’t give hangovers the way real alcohol did. 

“Jesus, Chris, it’s a little early to be drinking, isn’t it?”

“Hey, if it isn’t my friend the monkey man. Hey Jen, how are you doin’? When are you coming to visit us here in our humble abode?” Chris raised the nipple of the plastipod to his lips, drank and then belched contentedly.

“Classy, Chris. Very classy.” Jensen couldn’t help grinning. “It sounds like you’re having a good time there. Is that breakfast?”

“You kidding me?” Chris sounded astonished. “I haven’t been to bed yet. The party’s going strong.”

“Move over.” Steve’s voice could be heard in the background, and despite protests from Chris that were both inventive and profane, they went unacknowledged, at least by Steve, who appeared on the viewscreen moments later. Smirking, he nodded to Jensen. “Hey, kiddo, how’s it going with you?”

“Going good, thanks, man. Was just calling to let you know we’re ready to lift off at any time now, and we’re thinking we’ll be there in a couple of days. Jay wants to call in at Tranquility on the way there. He wanted to introduce me to some guys he served with.” Jared loomed over his shoulder at that point and pulled a face, sending Steve into paroxysms of laughter and making Jensen roll his eyes.

“We won’t hold you up, man.” Jared waved his hand to gesture around himself. “We’re all done here and ready to go. I’m gonna file a flight path in a couple hours and we’ll be on our way.”

“There’ll be plenty of synth left for when you get here.” Chris had shoved his face against Steve’s. “Jen, make sure you bring your instruments. “I’ma put you on the program. The crowd’s gonna get a real kick out of you and your ancient music.”

“Will do.” Jensen nodded, mentally trying to decide exactly what instruments he’d need to bring. “We’ll have some fun jamming.”

The conversation was soon over after that, and Jensen returned the headphones to their place on the console, turning to Jared. “Guess I’d better go get my guitar and my gizmotron at least. Want me to call a flyer, or will you let me take the hoverpad?”

“The hoverpad will be fine,” said Jared, tossing him the keys. “I’ll get the flight path worked out. Don’t take too long; I’ll need you for the pre-departure cross checks.”

“You got it.” Jensen bent to kiss Jared’s cheek and made for the door. 

“Hurry back, baby.” Jared was working now, fingers flying over the touch screen while blocks of figures flickered across it. “And bring my toothbrush, will you? I forgot it.”

Chuckling, Jensen went to get the things they needed.

~*~

Back at their apartment, it didn’t take Jensen long to pull all their stuff together. The run-through with the headphones in Ladybug had relieved him somewhat, and he felt much more light hearted than he’d been feeling lately. It seemed as if Jared had relaxed a little and begun to accept Jensen the way he was. The idea of getting implants into his brain terrified him, and until recently Jared had been leaning on him so hard to get the modification that he’d begun to dread talking to him. The fact that he’d been modifying the ‘Bug to enable him to work its comm unit made him feel better. He made his mind up that he wouldn’t let Jared down. He’d made his stand, and if his love had at last accepted him just as he was, then he would do his part to make sure that Jared never regretted it.

Slinging the canvas bag out onto the hoverpad, he turned back to give the command to lock up, sealing the door with the words that would close it up for good until either he or Jared returned and then stepped aboard to return to Jared and the Ladybug.

Jared had expressed a desire to take the hoverpad with him, and for a while on his arrival the two men worked to get it into the hold and secured. When everything was finally stowed, they made their way back to the cockpit and took up their positions. 

“We’ll bounce up to Tranquility and spend the night there, head towards the asteroids tomorrow, and aim for Tharsis plateau by twisting past them. I really don’t want to navigate through them without an engineer on board.”

Jensen nodded. His thoughts went out to Chad, who had been their engineer on the trip back from Grayspace, and he knew that Jared missed his brother in arms. “We should call them before we go,” he murmured, stepping up to the comm unit to key in the call without waiting for a reply.

It was Chad who answered, and grinned down at them from the main screen. “Hey, bitches, you going somewhere without us?” 

“Yep.” Jared moved up to slip his arms around Jensen’s waist from behind and rest his chin on his shoulder. “This planet’s way too small for the both of us. We’re goners for sure.”

“Well shit! I was gonna ask you to babysit while me n’ Sandy went to a porno party. I guess we’re just gonna have to hold one ourselves.” Chad was still a little pale. The experiences he’d had while foiling the Grays’ attempt to destroy Earth had left him comatose for a long while, and he was not entirely recovered. “Wish I was going with you,” he said.

“We wish you were as well.” Jensen knew that it would be far easier with an engineer on board, and he liked Chad. “You want us to babysit? The baby born yet? You didn’t tell us.”

“Nah. Another week or so, the doc tells us. Should see Sandy right now. I get the urge to tie her down to stop her floating away. She looks like a balloon with little legs.” There was a shriek from behind Chad, and Sandy appeared in the vidscreen, wielding a pillow with which she proceeded to smack Chad around the head until he managed to get his arms around her and hold her still.

“Where are you going?” she asked after she’d tested Chad’s grip and given up the struggle to escape.

“Chris and Steve have opened a bar and resort on Mars, and we’re going to make sure they don’t get into any trouble,” said Jared, and Jensen snorted.

“We talked to Chris a couple hours ago. It was 5am his time and he was still up and suckin’ down the synthahol.” Jensen chuckled. “We’re heading up there to stage an intervention.” 

“I’m sure Steve won’t thank you for that. If you ever get blood into Chris’s alcohol stream, he’s gonna keel over in a coma.” Sandy was smiling, but Chad was nodding behind her. “Give them my love, please.”

“Will do.” Jared nodded. “We’ll let you know when we’re coming home. I wanna see this baby. Can’t help worrying since Chad’s its father.”

“Hey! Don’t you be insulting me, Chewie.” Chad looked outraged. “My genes are special, and need to be passed on.”

That provoked laughter from all the other participants in the conversation, and finally they said their goodbyes and signed off. Finally, they were ready, locked down, loaded up and ready to go. Jared turned to Jensen.

“I’ve filed the flight path. Can you call up Space Traffic Control and get us a window for take-off?”

Jensen felt a tingle of excitement as he nodded and began to put the call through to STC. This was it. They were going to Mars. He wished he could call back through time and tell Jordan and Mikey all about what he was doing now. Suppressing the pangs of loss, he gave their call signal and waited for a response from the tower.

In a few more moments, they were ready to bounce.

~*~

The last time they’d stayed on the moon, they had been exhausted and recovering from the desperate race to save the earth. There had been the worry about whether Chad would live or die, and they had really seen very little save for their hotel room and the infirmary. This time was different. Jared was back in his old stomping ground, and was able to take Jensen round and show him all the places he’d frequented as a SpaceFleet pilot. 

The moon was a fascinating blend of ex-military people coming back to turn in their commissions, joining the ranks of civilian life, and the people who supported them. Since the war against the Grays was now largely won, and the Gray solar system well policed by SpaceFleet, most of the servicemen were now receiving their severance packages. There were all kinds of vendors clustered around Moonbase Tranquility, hoping to relieve newcomers of some of that lovely back-pay, and it was said that almost anything could be bought there.

Jensen had wandered through the Tranquility Bazaar, wide eyed, gazing at the merchandise, from Venusian caterpillar silk clothing through exotic fruit from the Aldebaran system to weird pets. He was fascinated by a snake-like creature that sang to him in a high, pure soprano, and then mesmerized by an array of crystals that produced a chord that blended with any note that was played or sung near it. After a good deal of dickering, Jared bought it for him, but drew the line at taking a snake of any kind on board with him.

They had the same room in the Officers’ Mess that they’d had on their return from Gray Space, and Jared led him down to the commissary to have their dinner.

They were eating their dessert when there was a loud cry of “Sasquatch! Fuck me! I thought you were discharged months ago. What are you doing here, man?” Looking around, Jared obviously couldn’t see at first who was making all the noise. It wasn’t until the other man was almost upon him that Jared apparently recognized him.

“Lindberg, they finally threw you out?” he shouted, rising to his feet to greet the other man. Jensen looked on in amusement as Jared was almost bowled backwards by a skinny guy wearing black nail polish and an earring.

There was a pause while the two of them recovered their equilibrium, and then the newcomer, whose name seemed to be Lindberg, sat down and waved a languid hand to summon a servebot. 

“Jen, I want you to meet another Chad.” Jared was laughing as he introduced the two of them. Chad leaned forward to offer the platoon greeting, and Jared put his hand on Chad’s shoulder. “Jen wasn’t in SpaceFleet,” he murmured. “He’s much more valuable than that.”

“Dude?” Chad turned from his transaction with the servebot. “Glad to meet you. You special ops or something.”

“Something like that,” nodded Jensen. “I was their prisoner for a long time. Jared rescued me.”

“Sounds extreme,” said Chad, pressing his thumbprint into the servebot’s chargecard mechanism and receiving a pack of smoking tubes labeled ‘Do not drive or operate heavy machinery.’ “Dudes, you have to try this. The weed they grow in Tycho complex is supposed to be the absolute best.” He lit one of the joints with the candle that sat in the middle of the table and inhaled deeply. “Oh, jeez, I need French fries, right the fuck now.”

“So, Chad, what plans you got now?” Jared sat back, declining the offer of a toke from his tube. He was watching Jensen, who was a little horrified at the concept of drugged cigarettes. Reaching for his hand, Jensen clung to it, not sure how to proceed when faced with this sleepy-eyed person.

“Jay?” he whispered, and Jared squeezed his hand, trying to tell him that it was okay. This was legal, and he didn’t need to worry about getting arrested or anything.

“You’re on the moon, Jen,” he finally said. “Don’t worry. We’re all legal here. This is an official SpaceFleet facility.

Jensen bit his lip, unwilling to say anything more until he’d learned a little more about what was legal and what was not. His Baptist upbringing told him to shun this friend of Jared’s, but he knew Jared, and Jared was much more aware of what was right and wrong in this current timeline than he was. He waited.

“Jen, Chad’s one of the best engineers I ever met. “ Jared bent toward him as Chad took a bow in his direction. “He somehow gets the engine to buy into his laid back philosophy. Chad Murray never did manage to get the knack.”

“Too uptight,” agreed Chad. “I’m writing a book about how I get machinery on my side. It’s not difficult as long as you don’t try and make them do shit. They have to like you, dude.” Smoke curled from the tube between his lips, and Jensen wondered whether he should try it. He felt as if he had somehow stumbled down the rabbit hole, and concluded that the future was definitely not predictable.

“I’m a little uptight as well,” he muttered. “I guess I need to learn to relax.”

“I can help there, li’l dude.” Chad waved his tube at Jensen and smiled happily but vaguely as Jensen took it and put it to his lips. “You’re a really pretty chap. You sure you were special ops?”

The first inhalation of the smoke from Chad’s tube was enough to cause Jensen to pass out, and Jared chuckled as he and Chad helped to get him back to their hotel room.

~*~

When Jensen woke in the morning, he was expecting to feel like shit. He had thought that he deserved the hangover of doom. He was somewhat perplexed at its absence, and felt somewhat ashamed that he hadn’t got one, because he knew he deserved it for overindulging so shamelessly. However, he felt great. 

Jared, who was cuddled up close beside him, stirred when Jensen sat up straight and tried to experience the headache he felt he so richly deserved. “’sup, baby?” he murmured, burying his face against the soft skin of Jensen’s side.

“Why don’t I feel bad?” Jensen sounded as if he somehow missed feeling that way.

“Why would you? You only had synthetics last night, and they’re all tailored to leave the system kindly.” Jared pulled him back down to kiss along his neck and up towards his mouth. “There are things you still have to learn about this century, my little throwback.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jensen scowled at his other half, thinking about punching him but feeling too comfortable and snuggly to actually move. “You’re a jerk,” he muttered.

“Guilty as charged.” Jared blew a raspberry against Jensen’s cheek and then gave a squawk as Jensen pinched one of his nipples and twisted. “Oh, you bitch!”

Comfortable snuggles were forgotten as full on warfare took over. It didn’t last long. Jared’s larger, heavier body and his combat training saw to that, and it wasn’t long before he had Jensen lying beneath him, hands imprisoned in a grip like iron. Struggling to be free was getting him nowhere, and after a few minutes he changed his tactics, melting up against Jared as he nibbled his way along the strong line of Jared’s jaw, gently undulating in a manner calculated to arouse him.

True to form, Jared forgot that they were fighting and captured Jensen’s full lips with his own. Jensen felt his fingers dip down to skim to taut globes of his ass, tightening on them to pull him closer still, and he squirmed a little, going for friction that made Jared hiss out a dirty little sound between his teeth.

Jensen snickered, low and filthy as he nuzzled against Jared’s neck, rubbing his face against the overnight stubble that studded his chin and dragged his tongue along the angle of Jared’s jaw up toward his ear. 

“Mmm…” Jensen sounded smug as he lifted his legs to wrap them around Jared’s waist. “Now you’re getting the idea.” He punctuated his words with little nips on Jared’s ear and then along his neck. “I knew you’d finally get a clue, slow as you are.”

Jared muttered out a curse and reached down to grasp his cock, pressing it against Jensen’s center as Jensen fumbled with the bottle of slick he’d grasped once Jared released his hands. Lube went everywhere as the two of them tried to get his dick ready, and the two of them were laughing by the time both of them were sufficiently lubed up.

Jensen gasped as Jared flexed his hips to slide home, and Jared echoed the sound, biting his lip as he sank inside his love. Jensen gazed up at Jared, drinking in the sight of the man’s cat-like eyes, hooded and predatory as he began to move. There was a soft moan; Jensen didn’t know who made it, but it didn’t matter anyway as their mouths collided and tongues slid together, sweet counterpoint to the motion of their hips.

Jensen arched his hips, yowled as Jared sank his teeth into the flesh of his shoulder and tightened his arms around him, body tingling, so close, so very close. He rolled his hips, and there! Right there! That was the end of it as the fire ignited inside, pulling the heat and the tingling and the sheer fucking sweetness of the whole thing into a tight, hot ball at the base of his spine, gathering it in a timeless moment to send it exploding though him, a white hot supernova of release that locked his muscles solid and clenched everything tight, tighter, tightest.

His climax seemed to go on forever, come juicing out of him to slick up their bellies. Jared groaned, arched his neck back and went for it, hips stuttering as he worked himself in and out through the rippling of Jensen’s orgasm. Jensen could feel it when he came, the sudden flood of warmth as Jared gave it up and spurted his fluids into him. He laughed softly, and, as Jared finally began to slump, he pulled him down against his chest.

“Well, good morning,” he murmured, soft breath tickling against Jared’s ear.

“Morning to you too, baby,” replied Jared, kissing him gently and rolling to one side. “I got us an engineer.”

“What? How?” Jensen lifted himself up onto one elbow. “Who?”

“Lindberg wanted to hitch a ride,” he said. “And he’s a good engineer. His presence means we can risk a twist straight through from here to MarsPort. That’ll cut out the asteroids completely.”

“Yeah?” Jensen smiled, inwardly feeling a little hurt that Jared had set things up without consulting him. He sighed. It was Jared’s ship, he guessed, but he had thought that they would be alone. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because Jared kissed him again. “It’ll be good. You’ll see. And we’ll have loads of time when we get to Steve’s place.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jensen pushed up from their bed feeling a little disgruntled that Jared hadn’t asked him if it was okay to take a third person, and, as he went to take a shower in the refresher, he found himself wondering if Jared actually didn’t trust him to be competent, just because he didn’t have those goddamned implants he was so proud of. “You would’ve been disintegrated by Misha the gray, if I had those implants. It was only the fact that I didn’t that saved you,” he growled, soaping himself furiously.

Heading back to the Ladybug after breakfast, Jensen lingered once again beside the singing snake, fascinated by the sounds it made. Jared finally persuaded him to leave it behind by buying an album of the music it had made.

Chad L. was sitting on his pack alongside the ‘Bug when they arrived, smoking tube in his mouth, leaning his back against the Ladybug’s fuselage as he dozed, a faint blue curl of smoke emerging from his tube. As Jared reached the door and thumbed the securilock, Chad yawned and stretched, then rose to his feet. “Dude, I thought you’d never get here.”

“”We’re not scheduled to go ‘til 16:00 hours. We stayed to watch this weird singing snake thing,” said Jared. “Jen doesn’t seem to be able to look away from it.”

“Oh, hey, you’re talkin’ about that Venusian lamia they have in the bazaar?” At Jared’s nod, Chad turned to Jensen. “Way cool beast, that one. I’d love one, but I can’t sing, and I can’t really play an instrument. They fade if you don’t play music for them.”

Jensen turned back to Jared, and was about to speak, but Jared forestalled him. “Jen, baby, let’s talk about it later. We don’t have a place for it on board the ‘Bug.”

Nodding, Jensen said no more, and went over to set up the comm unit ready to leave.

Chad had stowed his gear and was starting to familiarize himself with the engines when Jensen was called by the Lunar control tower. He turned to Jared. “Hey, Jay, it’s LTC. They want to slot us in at 14:25. That gives us 21 minutes. Are we gonna be ready to go?”

Jared, whose head had been in the engine compartment, pulled himself up and raised an eyebrow at Chad. “What do you think, bro?”

“Peace, dude. She sounds as sweet as that lamia,” Chad had the slightly unfocused gaze that on anyone else might be attributed to the fact that he was plugged into the engine, but in his case, Jensen thought might well be due to the smoking stick he had clamped between his teeth.

“In that case, I guess we go at 14:25,” murmured Jared, clapping Chad on his shoulder and making his way over to the Pilot’s console.

There was little more said as Jared brought the console online and filed his suggested flight path. Chad hummed to himself tunelessly and Jensen listened to the ceaseless strings of instructions from the tower as he awaited their launch time.

He was excited. This marked his first conscious trip to another planet. He knew that the Grays had taken him all those years ago, but back then he had been in stasis, frozen and unaware of the experience, and he so wasn’t counting the trip home from the place where he’d been for so long an exhibit in an unreal alien museum. This was his first voluntary voyage, and his excitement was palpable.

When they finally got the go ahead to lift off, the Ladybug bobbed up into space without a hitch, and as he gazed at the starkly illuminated lunar landscape spread out beneath him, he felt a shiver run down his spine. Beyond the moon lay their pathway through the asteroids to Mars, and he couldn’t wait.

The twist, when it came, brought with it the disturbing sensation that he remembered so well from his journey home with Chad, Jared and Sandy. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” he said, and Chad, who was eating a chocolate bar as he lounged at ease beside the engine locker, gave him a grin.

“You need to take one of these things next time.” He tossed a blisterpack containing four bright orange capsules over to him. “They’ll tone up your system good and tight. Not as good as Tycho weed, but close.”

Studying them dubiously, Jensen stuffed the pills into his pocket and grunted a thank you. Jared, who had been deeply tranced while bringing them out of the twist in exactly the place he’d wanted to be, began to come out of it, and nodded in satisfaction as he looked at the chart on the overhead screen. 

“Perfect! I rock,” he crowed, and offered Jensen a high five.

“Yeah, you do,” murmured Jensen, turning back to the comm as it bleeped at him. “I’ve got MarsPort. They want to know if we need a pilot.”

Jared asked to communicate with them directly, and commenced negotiations to enter Martian space and head directly for Tharsis and Steve’s place, while Jensen brooded, wondering if he’d have taken over directly if Sandy had been at the commport. It was several hours later - and a whole bunch of questions about immunizations and diseases suffered, including things that Jensen had never even heard of - that they were finally granted admission, and Jensen felt the engine note change as MarsPort took control of the bug, directing it into the traffic lanes and routing it to the port that Christian had caused to be built beside their new facility. When the dome opened for them, and Ladybug touched down at last, Jared heaved a sigh of relief.

“Glad that’s over,” he grunted, maneuvering his little ship into one of the vacant berths and awaiting clearance to disembark. “I hate when they take over like that. Fucking control freaks!”

“Dude, that was freaky.” Lindberg stepped out of the engine compartment to peer at the vidscreen, but the view was hazy, and dust from their arrival swirled around the outside of the dome. “Too bad we can’t see John Carter and his banths, man; I was really hoping for some scantily clad red Martian chicks to take me away and make me theirs.”

Jensen gave a snort of laughter. “You gonna put on a leather harness and a sword and go out looking for foes to vanquish?”

“No, man. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” Chad pulled the smoking tube out of his mouth and began to tip in some grey powder. “I loved those stories though. I had all the disks.”

“Well,” said Jared, who had just finished compiling his log. “Let’s go take a look at the red planet, shall we?” He thumbed the control that would unlock the door and as it slid open he rose from his seat and went to peer out of the door. “Jen? You want to go first?”

Nodding, eager, Jensen hopped down onto the dock and turned to look out through the plasteel dome. Visibility was almost nil, and his face fell a little. Still, he thought, this was Mars, and here he was. There would be time for sightseeing.

As he was waiting for the other two to disembark, a door slid open in the main building, and Chris came rushing over. “What’re you waiting for? Get your skinny ass over here. There’s a drink with your name on it in the bar.”

“I see you’ve still got your priorities right, Kane,” observed Jared, strolling up behind Chris to slap him on the back.

“Damn straight, son,” growled Chris. “Steve’s been waiting on you guys before cooking, and I’m at the stage where my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. Hurry up and get in here so I can eat.” 

Chad had made it out of the ship by this time, and when Chris caught sight of him, he gave a whoop. “Holy shit! It’s Lindberg! I haven’t set eyes on you since that fuck up on Rigel Four. How ya been?”

“Intoxicated, mostly,” smirked Chad, holding out his hand for a fist bump. “Gonna be heading out again in the morning, though. My girl is coming to pick me up and take me out to Mariner Valley, where her folks have a farm. We’re gonna grow pot for the miners.” 

“Settling down at last, son? Good to hear it.” Chris was leading the way back into the building behind them and turned to Jared as he pulled open the airlock door. “Lemme show you what we’ve been up to since we got here. You’re gonna be impressed with what we’ve done so far.”

Jensen gasped as he came through the inner lock. There were strong lights overhead, and a field within the plasteel dome that had been planted with all kinds of vegetables. “But… but I thought…” he murmured, and Chris winked at him. “Steve don’t cook no reconstituted crap. He wants fresh and tasty stuff. This is my garden. I keep him supplied with the good stuff an’ he feeds me good.”

Chris led them into the field past a stand of corn that looked to be almost ripe, and into a small building that had been partially concealed. Behind another airlock there was a long flight of stairs descending down under the garden, and the three visitors looked around themselves with great interest at the way it had been constructed. There was a passageway that was lined in similar Kevlar-style plastic that they were familiar with from the moon and Tranquility Base. Another lock opened out into a large room, set up as a bar, and Chris led them through it, past the few people that they could see sitting drinking or playing pool. They moved around the bar past a stern looking bartender, whose nametag proclaimed him to be Freddie Lehne, and through to the kitchen.

“Come on out, Carlson.” Chris’s voice, never soft at the best of times, could have wakened the dead. It certainly brought Steve out from a large, walk-in refrigerator, a tray of chops in his hands. Scowling at Chris, he put his burden down on a stainless steel worktop and wiped his hands on the cloth he had tucked into his belt. 

“Well, now,” he said. “I heard you were showing up, so I killed the fatted calf.” He indicated the meat and snickered. “Actually, it was a protopig, and it was already dead, but it’s the thought that counts. Dinner will be up in around a half an hour.” He moved around the worktop and pulled first Jared, then Jensen in for hugs. Finally he turned to Chad, who had been hanging back, watching. “Lindberg! I’ve got some awesome stuff for you. Cherry flavored. Smooth as silk, guaranteed.”

“Dude, you got a supplier on Mars?” Chad sounded incredulous.

“You kidding? Chris here plants what I tell him, and tends it real well.” Steve smirked, then turned to Christian. “Hey, Kane, can you go get me a couple of those tubers? I’m all out.”

Chris saluted sharply and turned to go back the way he’d come, leaving Jared gaping. “Who is that, and what have you done with Christian Kane?”

Steve smiled his lazy smile. “Give him his regular supply of sex and drugs and rock n’ roll, and he’s a regular pussycat. Gotta love him when he’s all domesticated.”

“It’s certainly a side of him we haven’t seen before,” smirked Jared. 

Steve’s smile broadened. “It’s love. Soothes the savage beast, you know?” 

“I thought that was supposed to be music,” muttered Jensen, and Lindberg elbowed him with a smirk.

“It’s a many splendored thing,” he said, piously, making Jensen giggle.

Kane stomped back into the kitchen carrying a bucket of the tubers he’d been sent to fetch. Steve seized them eagerly and put them into the sink to wash them. Chris was scowling ferociously. “Someone’s been in the garden. There was a whole patch of pineches that were almost ready for harvest, and they’re all gone. Ain’t nothin’ left but bare dirt. You been out there grabbin’ your own?”

“No. Not me.” Steve frowned. “And none of the punters ever get to go into the bar that way. They all use the front door.” He shrugged. “And damn! I had plans for those pineches. Developed an awesome quiche recipe with yolla meat.”

“Dude,” murmured Lindberg, looking as if he was entranced. “I haven’t eaten yolla since I left the Altair system.”

“Steve is a genius in the kitchen. Stick around, Chad, my boy, and we’ll feed you up.” Chris clapped Lindberg on the shoulder, and Jensen cleared his throat. 

“What’s pineches?” he asked, feeling like he’d fallen into a world where people spoke gibberish. 

“Pineches are awesome, Jen. They’re this purple vegetable that Steve brought back from one of the moons in the Altair system. They taste like a cross between asparagus and peaches, and they’re purple. Look awesome on a plate. He turned back to Steve. “I’m gonna put a couple of cameras out there and see if I can track whatever’s stealing from the garden. Don’t wanna see any more good stuff poached.”

Steve snickered. “Ol’ farmer Kane,” he said. “Get your shotgun and sit out in the corn patch. Blast the varmints. Just keep ‘em off the frambule bush. I’ve got plans for those berries that don’t involve alien poachers.”

“Good idea,” growled Chris and disappeared back out of the kitchen, possibly to find a shotgun.

~*~

Jared sat back in his chair and patted his stomach appreciatively. “That was incredible, Steve,” he said, belching epically, much to Jensen’s amusement. There weren’t any leftovers, and everyone wore a similarly glazed expression. Chris appeared to be dozing off until Steve nudged him and the two of them rose to start clearing away the debris from their feast.

Chris had rounded up several weapons and a couple of cameras, and announced his intention of spending the night out in his garden, jealously protecting his produce, and Jared volunteered to go with him to help him set up the cameras, which they would wire into the network that ran the resort.

The other two elected to head into the bar with Steve and sample some of the locally brewed beer that Steve had been praising. Freddie, the bartender, had been washing glasses, but turned around to come and serve them. “Hey, Boss,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

They soon had beers in front of them, and Freddie was invited to join them. Steve explained that it was likely to be quiet in the bar until later, when their floor show would start. “Once we get the girls in and Chris takes the stage you’ll see the place fill up.”

The beer was excellent, and Jensen had just started his second when Jared came back to join them, grinning. “He’s sitting in his briar patch like Elmer Fudd, muttering about ‘wascally wabbits’. Oh, and he wanted you to patch a feed through to the intercom behind the bar, so he can yell his orders for more booze.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but nodded to Freddie, who smirked as he went to set that up. Pretty soon, they could hear Chris mumbling to himself.

“You ain’t gonna catch any rabbits if you’re gonna keep on mouthing off that way, man,” Steve called out to his partner. “And you’ve got three hours before showtime, so use them well.”

“If you were out here, you’d see my middle finger,” retorted Chris, but after that he was silent.

The time passed by rapidly. The beer was awesome, and Jared challenged Jensen to a game of pool which after a while became a challenge between the four of them. Jensen was feeling somewhat fuzzy by the time Jared finally raised his cue aloft. Everything was great, and he was at peace with the world – or maybe that was Mars. He giggled at that idea, and when Steve raised an eyebrow, he announced, annunciating very carefully that he was at peace with Mars.

The bar was beginning to fill up, and Steve went back over to the bar. “Okay, Chris, time to come on in. We’ve got 20 minutes to showtime.”

There was no response. Frowning, Steve tapped the intercom. “Christian? You need to get back inside right now.” No sound announced Chris’s return, and Steve was looking concerned now. “Chris? Where are you?”

“Problems?” Jared had been listening, and Steve shrugged. “He isn’t answering. I think I’m gonna have to go grab him, shake him out of his doze and kick his ass. He’s obviously fallen asleep.”

“Okay.” Jared clapped Steve’s shoulder. “I’ll come with you. You might need help if he decides he doesn’t wanna come.” He chuckled and cracked his knuckles. 

“Okay, let’s go round him up,” said Steve, leading the way out and along the corridor towards the airlock into the garden.

Phobos had risen, and was shining down through the transparent dome, casting weird, elongated shadows. Steve looked back over his shoulder at Jared. “Okay. Where is he lurking?”

“Just around here. Jared moved around to the side of the little outlet building to where there was a stand of tall vegetables that he couldn’t identify. “He was sitting behind this patch of…” He trailed off into silence. “Well, he was.”

The stool Chris had taken out with him was still there. There were three weapons on the ground beside it, and Chris himself was nowhere to be seen. Not only that, but the camera that had been situated just above where Chris had been sitting was mysteriously burned, and appeared to be a mere mass of melted plastic. That made the disappearance seem rather more sinister than it had earlier.

“Jesus.” Jared looked around, unsure. “Maybe put the lights on. It’s difficult to see if he’s patrolling around while it’s dark like this.”

“Got it,” nodded Steve. He turned back into the entrance to the airlock and spoke a code. The lights came on at once, dim at first but rapidly brightening until it seemed to be full daylight once more. Jared began to quarter the garden, peering into clumps of vegetation and calling for Chris.

After a few moments, Steve joined in, and between them they very rapidly covered the entire acreage. “Do you suppose he went out of the terminal? Maybe he went to check out the Ladybug or get something from Piñata Novia?”

“Guess it’s worth a try,” agreed Steve, and they made for the airlock.

Half an hour later, they had to admit that Chris was nowhere to be seen. Steve was looking really distressed when Jared finally led them back into the resort complex. “Don’t suppose he came back in and went to his room or something?” Jared was baffled. “It’s not like Chris. He doesn’t just head off without giving people notice of where he’s going.”

Be that as it may, after searching the entire resort complex, right down to the storage rooms and the engine room where their air and water was generated and recycling took place, but there was no sign of the elusive Christian Kane.

~*~

The mood over breakfast was somewhat subdued. 

Chad Lindberg’s girl had proven to be an incredibly beautiful, full breasted Amazon named Gina who appeared in a two seater flyer at the crack of dawn and wrapped herself around the skinny engineer with a joyful cry as Steve watched, eyes bugging at the sight.

Long after they had departed, and all the way through breakfast, Steve had muttered his disbelief that Lindberg would be able to handle her. “She’ll eat him alive. I was on a tour with her on the Fitzgerald’s first run into Grayspace. She was a bitch on wheels.”

It was a while before the topic of the missing Kane came up.

“You think he went outside?” Jensen, who had rather a nasty headache, looked up from his morning stimulant hopefully. He’d always loved coffee, but this new Venusian beverage Jared had introduced him to did the job so much faster. It felt as if he was revived in one sip.

“We already checked outside.” Jared shook his head. “I’ve got no idea where he’s gone, but he wasn’t with the ships either.

“No, Jay, I meant outside the dome, onto Mars itself.” 

“Why would he have done that?” asked Steve. “There isn’t really any reason. Besides, he’d have to suit up and his suit is hanging in the ‘fresher right here.”

“We’ll take the hoverjet out tomorrow and scout around the area.” Jared reached to squeeze Steve’s shoulder. “Maybe he had to go buy something. Where’s the nearest mall?”

Steve snorted. “There isn’t a Walmart closer than Ganymede, dude,” he said. 

“So where do you go to get the stuff you need?” 

“Most of it comes in on the supply ship from Tranquility every other week,” interrupted Freddie, who had just come in and was now messing around with the range. “I’m making pancakes. Anyone else want some?”

Jared was the only taker, and Steve turned to him. “If we were desperately short of something, we’d contact MarsPort for it. If he’d gone off to MarsPort, he’d have taken the Piñata. She’s still in her berth, so I don’t suppose that’s where he’s gone.”

Jared had to accept that was the truth, and he nodded. Silence other than the sound of Fred mixing up batter ensued. Nobody had any ideas, and it seemed as though there was no way forward. Finally, Jensen got to his feet. “I’m gonna go check out the garden – see if there’s anything I can spot that you guys didn’t. I don’t suppose there is, but you never know.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jared was far more interested in watching Fred’s progress with the pancakes than in Jensen’s announcement. Steve nodded, still looking confused and a little lost. 

“Take the radio with you. Call me if you find anything, okay.”

“You got it.” Jensen raised his hand in a half salute, poured himself another cup of the marvelous coffee substitute and then headed out towards the garden, grabbing the small radio as he went.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Jared turned to the others. “Do you think he’s going to be okay out there?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Freddie frowned. “He seems pretty sensible.”

“You don’t understand. He’s…” Jared frowned, trying to think of how to express his worry for the man he loved.

“He’s just a guy,” said Steve. “No different from us except that he hasn’t been in SpacefFleet.”

“He doesn’t have the implants. He’s not protected the way we are.” Jared rose to his feet, leaving half his pancakes uneaten. “I’d better go see if he’s okay.”

“Dude, if he was having any trouble, he’d be calling us on the radio,” protested Steve, but Jared was already on his way out of the kitchen, and his words fell on deaf ears.

“Overprotective much?” murmured Fred, sighing as he rose to clear away the dishes.

“Yeah. One of these days Jen’s gonna give Jared a message he can’t ignore.” Steve shook his head. “Jay always was a control freak. It’s what makes him a good pilot.”

~*~

Jared burst out of the airlock door with Jensen’s name already on his lips. He could see Jensen over to his right, over by the edge of the dome. He had turned off the overhead lights, and was gazing out beyond the dome towards Ascraeus. Jared had to admit, the huge volcano was worth gazing at. The dust of the previous day had settled, and the three volcanoes were clearly visible in the dim Martian daylight. In the foreground, Ascraeus was sending up plumes of sparks and smoke to roil above it, and there was a sluggish ooze of glowing lava trickling down the side, painting the landscape around it a lurid red. Behind Ascraeus, Pavonis was providing its own light show, with flickers of blue lightning that played around its jagged peak. Arsia was distant and ominous on the horizon, as black against the sky as a rotten tooth.

As Jensen stood, enthralled, Jared went to stand behind him, and he jumped a little as Jared put his hands on his shoulders. “Didn’t hear you,” he murmured after a moment or so. “Check it out. It’s gorgeous to watch.”

“It is.” Jared slid his arms around Jensen’s waist and stood watching with him as the flickering light of the ongoing eruptions painted streaks of angry red over the plain between them and the resort. “What a place to want to settle down.”

“Yeah.” Jensen leaned back against Jared. 

They remained there for a few moments longer, and then Jared let go and turned to move away, plugging in his communication jack as he did so. “Need to be in contact with Steve just to make sure he doesn’t worry,” he said.

“I’ve got the radio,” protested Jensen, but to no avail. Jared was already talking to Steve. Sighing, Jensen turned to follow Jared, feeling as though he’d just been treated like a child. Jared was still around twenty paces ahead of him, passing through the disturbed patch of dirt that had been the start of all this, when he saw the ground begin to shift just behind Jared. He called out a warning, but Jared, evidently in a light commtrance, didn’t appear to register it, and as Jensen watched, the ground opened to reveal a hole, out of which creatures were emerging.

Two of them were pallid, white from the hairs on their heads to the soles of their feet. They seemed remarkably humanoid, and focused on Jared with a singular intensity. The third, a little behind them but equally focused and apparently oblivious to anything but Jared, was Christian Kane. 

“No!” Jensen flung himself forward, trying to reach Jared before they did, but the two aliens had seized him and were dragging him down into the hole before he got close enough. Chris, who had turned to follow them back, was the only one he could manage to lay a hand on, and he grabbed onto Chris, one hand twined into his hair and the other fisted into his shirt to hold onto him as the hole closed behind them, leaving Christian on the outside, suddenly completely still and unmoving.

“Chris, what the fuck?” Jensen let him go for a second or two as he tried to find a way to open up the hole into which Jared had been dragged. Chris didn’t move, merely stood quiescent and incurious, a glazed look to his eyes.

Grabbing hold of the little radio, Jensen sent a short message to say that they needed help and then grabbed Chris’s arm and tugged him towards the still open airlock.

Chris followed him willingly enough, moving where he was ledt but showing no initiative of his own, and Jensen was quick to close the airlock behind him, scared that whatever had taken Jared would come back for Chris – or for him.

He met Steve and Freddie when they were halfway down the corridor that led off to the bar. He’d ignored the repeated calls on the radio in the interests of getting Chris to safety, and as Steve ran up to them, he tried to tell them what had happened.

“They burst out of the ground…” he began, and then trailed off as Steve enveloped Chris, fussing over him, scolding him with tears in his eyes. Fred shrugged his shoulders and gave Jensen a sympathetic look. 

“You can tell me,” he said, grinning. “I’m listening. Dunno what I can do to help, but I’ll certainly listen.” He paused and then frowned. “Hey, where’s Stretch? Is he okay?”

“They took him,” said Jensen, looking devastated. “I wasn’t in time to stop them.” He turned and began to head to back outside. “I’ve got to go rescue him.”

“Hey, wait up.” Freddie ran after him, grabbing his shoulder just as he reached the stairs. “You have no idea what you’re getting into. Come on back. We need to set up a plan of action before going off half cocked.”

Everything in Jensen wanted to resist, to rush outside and try to follow Jared before whatever had happened to Chris happened to him as well, but after a moment’s thought he nodded and relaxed, turning once again to follow Freddie and Steve back to the bar. 

Two of the girls who were part of the stage show had entered the kitchen to find themselves some breakfast and they were staring at Chris in consternation. Still completely vacant, Chris allowed himself to be pushed down into a seat, where he rested, blue eyes fixed on nothing as he gazed into infinity.

“What’s wrong with him?” Katie, blonde and glamorous even so early in the day, poked him with one elegantly manicured finger. Chris made no move to avoid.

“Search me.” Steve had taken hold of both of Chris’s hands, and was kneeling between his knees to try and get his attention. “Come on, Kane. Look at me. You know you want to.” Chris remained steadfastly absent.

“I think he’s stoned.” Lindsay, the quieter of the two girls stepped forward to pat Chris’s cheeks. 

“Hey, McKeon, get off him,” snapped Steve. “You too, Cassidy. He doesn’t need to come to with all bruises and welts from you two and your diabolic liberties.”

“Our liberties are never diabolic,” pouted Katie, backing off a little way, but not too far.

“More like angelic,” agreed Lindsay. “What are you going to do with him?”

“No idea,” admitted Steve. “Gonna have to get in touch with MarsPort and see if anyone knows anything about this.”

“When you’ve got a minute,” called Freddie, who had been watching Jensen growing more and more distressed. “I think it would be really useful to hear what Jensen here can tell us. He saw it.”

All of a sudden, everyone’s eyes were on Jensen, and he swallowed, biting back his tears to relate his experiences. As he concluded his tale, Steve shook his head. “Guess I do have to call up MarsPort. This whole thing is totally outside of my experience.”

“They came from underground.” Fred spoke softly, but everyone’s attention turned to him at once. “When you were setting up here, did you get the place surveyed?”

“Hell, yeah.” Steve was emphatic. “Did every test we could think of. Seismography, soil analysis, all of that good stuff.”

“Did you use GPR?” asked Fred. “That would’ve shown you any voids underground. We really need to find out whether they are directly beneath us, or if they’ve burrowed along to get to us.”

“What’s GPR?” asked Steve, looking a little confused. “Why would we need it?”

“Ground Penetrating Radar,” Fred told him. “Remote sensing of what’s underground.”

“Frankly, we weren’t looking for caves so much as fault lines. We really wanted to avoid sitting on top of a quake, or a new volcano.” 

“I guess we need to get someone in to do it now,” said Jensen, who had been listening to the back and forth without comment. “Whatever they are, and wherever they live, they’ve got Jared, and I want him back.” 

“Good call,” nodded Steve and turned to go interface with MarsPort.

He was tranced for what seemed to Jensen to be hours, and when he emerged from the grid, he didn’t look too happy. “Apparently people have been vanishing randomly from around MarsPort too,” he said to the room at large. “Guess we need to take a lot more care than we thought.” He looked over to where Jensen was sitting, hunched and miserable. “They’re sending over a GPR antenna and someone to use it. They’ve got a physician over there that specializes in breaking people out of trance sickness, too, to help Chris. In the meantime I’m to interface with him and try and get through to him that way.”

“How long?” Jensen was biting his lip. “The sooner we get him back, the less likely he is to be… like that.” He indicated Chris, who hadn’t moved since Steve had gone to use the grid.

Steve’s eyes were bright with unshed tears as he glanced over at Christian, but he tried for a smile. “Don’t worry, dude. We’ll get him back for you. Hell, we’ll get both of them back. You’ll see.” He ruffled Chris’s hair. “They’re gonna be here in a half hour or so. I need to be ready to open the dome for them. I don’t do it very often, because Chris is the one that takes care of our parking.”

“I can do it for you,” murmured Jensen. “How difficult can it be?”

Nodding, Steve showed him the controls and left him to it, rushing away to prepare rooms for the two specialists who were coming to help them make sense of the situation. Fred had gone to open the bar, but he returned to the small control room shortly after Jensen had settled beside the dome mechanism. “Here, kiddo; I brought you this.” He set down a tray containing a glass of scotch and an assortment of snacks from the bar. “Just hit that button to buzz me if you need anything more.” 

Jensen gave him a watery smile as he thanked him for his kindness, and Fred went off back to the bar, collecting Christian on his way and taking him along. “You never know. Booze might jog his memory. He spends most of his time in the bar anyway,” he called back to Jensen as they disappeared out of sight.

~*~

The small flier bearing the two experts arrived not long afterwards. Jensen let them in without screwing up, and thought that Jared would be proud of him – at least, Jared would have been proud of him, if he hadn’t been missing.

Opening the airlock to go and meet them, he was faced with two very different people. The GPR expert was solid and middle aged with a perpetually amused expression, and the techno-psych technician was slender and manic, with short dark hair and a way of moving his hands that suggested he might be gay. Jensen smiled and grabbed one of the large trunks that they’d unloaded, happy that gravity on Mars was less than on Earth and allowed him to haul the heavy weight effortlessly. Turning, he led the two newcomers towards the airlock and through into the garden.

Once back inside the complex, they found that Steve had returned from setting up accommodation for the two specialists and was sitting with Christian, his eyes full of words that he was unable to say.

The two who had just arrived introduced themselves as Mark Sheppard, the GPR technician, and Mike, who didn’t give his second name, but who merely gave Steve a hug and told him that he would fix Chris or die trying. “Trust me, honey, I’ve seen far worse cases. One I had was so comatose that he had to be prompted to breathe. Christian should be a piece of cake.”

Mark seemed a little preoccupied. He turned down a beer when Steve offered it, in favor of water, telling him that he was on the wagon, and then began quizzing him about what had made him select Tharsis as his location for the resort. Steve had happily spread out blueprints and permits for Mark to inspect while Mike, who had accepted as much alcohol as he had been offered, had withdrawn a small black box from his pocket and plugged his comm port in. As Jensen watched, he reached for Chris and within minutes had connected Chris to the little machine too. 

Steve hadn’t really noticed what Mike was doing, busily explaining the rationale for choosing the particular location for the resort, but Jensen was watching, fascinated, as Mike hooked Chris up to himself and tranced out until the two of them seemed to be as comatose as each other.

Mark had been nodding busily, and seemed to understand why Steve had set up the community in just that location, and as Steve wound up his explanation he took over, pinpointing the exact places where he felt they should start to perform the GPR survey and just what it might reveal.

“I don’t know if you’ve come across any of the reports from MarsPort, but there have been an increasing number of disappearances lately. It didn’t show for a while, because a lot of the folk that are missing were transient folks, just on Mars for R and R before heading out to the asteroids to do a little mining, but we’re starting to notice things now.” Mark waved his hand to indicate Chris and Jensen as he continued. “Yours is the first documented case where someone has actually seen an abduction take place, and Mr. Kane here is the first victim we’ve been able to recover. I think we’ve got a really good chance now of solving the mystery of what’s happening.”

“Can we get Jared back?” asked Jensen, biting his lip. “I’m not thinking of it as a mystery; I’m thinking of it as the man I love has been dragged away by weird white Martians.”

“We’re going to try,” said Mark, and Steve nodded behind him.

“Damned straight,” he growled. “We’ll get him back or die trying.”

Nodding, Jensen went back to watching Mike and Chris, fascinated to see that Chris seemed to have relaxed a tiny bit.

“Right then,” murmured Mark, rising to his feet. “Now we’ve got a plan of action, let’s go.” He slung his monitor over one shoulder and picked up the hold-all that contained the GPR equipment. “Would you come with me?” he asked Jensen. “You’re the one that escaped, and you saw where they emerged too.”

“Okay.” There seemed little else for Jensen to say. Sighing, he rose to his feet to follow Mark. Steve was just reaching for the radio to hand to him when Christian suddenly gave a shuddering sigh.

“Guess you should stay here,” said Mark, smirking. Steve ignored him, his eyes fixed on Christian and the man who he hoped could fix him.

~*~

Outside in the garden, Ascraeus was still performing, and although the flitter had kicked up a certain amount of dust, the show was still spectacular, and both men took a moment to gaze at it. Jensen flipped off the lights for a moment, and stood back to let Mark see it in all its glory before restoring them and turning back to move over to the area where Jared had last been seen. 

“This is where it happened, dude,” he said, indicating the area where the ground had been disturbed. Mark gave him a nod and began to set up his equipment. “I grabbed at Chris, but I couldn’t reach Jay in time, and it looked like he didn’t even fight. He just went with them, as calm as you please.”

“Kind of like the way Chris is right now?” asked Mark, a frown on his face. 

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” agreed Jensen. I never thought of that, but yeah. I’d have expected him to throw a couple of punches at least. They didn’t seem to have any weapons or anything, so I can’t imagine why he didn’t put up a struggle.”

Mark had set his machine up on a kind of tripod, and stood it up with the sensor sticking down into the ground above the place that Jensen had indicated. Turning it on, he paused, watching the readout on the monitor. “Well, it looks like there’s more than just a hole down there,” he said. “I’ll need to do some triangulation of course, but it looks like you’ve got a whole…”

Whatever he had been going to say remained unspoken as the monitor suddenly flickered and began to smoke. A few moments later, the GPR emitted a high pitched squeal, and the dirt began to boil at their feet.

“Get back!” Jensen grabbed Mark’s arm and hauled him round, running for the door to the resort and safety. “They’re coming again.”

This time they didn’t see any white creatures emerge to chase them, but a single brown arm emerged from the dirt, seized hold of the GPR machine and dragged it down under the ground as the two of them stood in the doorway watching in horror.

“Fuck!” Mark seemed totally shocked.

“Double fuck!” Jensen shook his head. “They stole your thingy. Now what do we do?”

“I guess we start digging,” smirked Mark. “Unless you’ve got a better suggestion.”

“They don’t seem to like being spied on,” muttered Jensen, turning to go downstairs to find out where Chris’s tools were kept. 

Back in the kitchen, Mike was no longer hooked into Christian, and was explaining something very earnestly to Steve. Chris appeared to be much less rigid and spaced out, although he still had a vacant look in his eyes. Jensen burst in among them. “Steve? I need to get Chris’s gardening tools. Shovels and things.”

Steve was too preoccupied to respond, so it was Freddie who led Jensen and Mark, who had followed him, out to where Chris’s gardening tools were located. “What’s going on, dude?”

“Mike’s got some of the block lifted from Chris’s memory, but he needs to interface Steve with him, because Steve is the one person who knows him best.” Fred shrugged. “Steve’s just getting coached in exactly how to approach it. I figured it wouldn’t matter if it was just me that showed you the stuff.”

“Hey, don’t say it like that.” Jensen patted Fred’s shoulder. “Believe me, I know Chris is a priority. It’s just… Those things stole Mark’s equipment, so we’re gonna dig them out.”

“Well, let’s get the stuff to do it with.” Freddie was reaching into the cupboard as he spoke. “And you probably should collect a couple of weapons before you go back outside. No point in putting yourself in danger.”

“Good call.” Jensen, who knew where Jared had put his service issue laser, ran off to find it, and grabbed the pair of ion rods that he and Jared carried when they felt they needed some protection from the environment.”

“You want some help out there?” Fred watched as Jensen returned, bearing the weapons.

“That’d be great.” Mark was passing out spades and shovels as Freddie asked, and turned to Jensen to nod his approval. “Wanna grab that wheelbarrow?” he asked. “We’ll need it to put the borer in it.”

“Borer?” Jensen looked puzzled. “What is it?”

Reaching into the cupboard, Mark picked up a heavy looking machine that looked for all the world like a gigantic whisk. “This, my dear, is going to save us a whole lot of effort.”

Loading things into Jensen’s wheelbarrow, the three of them made the trek back along the corridor and out into the garden once more. Freddie and Jensen began to dig, while Mark started to get the weird item he’d called a borer ready for action. “Gonna need to cover me,” he said to the other two as he set it down on the dirt. “If it goes the way I think it will, we’ll be getting a visit from our little friends as soon as I turn this gizmo on, and, given that I don’t wanna be turned into some kind of zombie, even temporarily, I’d appreciate it if you would shoot any of the fuckers that decide to come grab at me.”

“You got it.” Jensen stood by with the laser, while Freddie cranked up both ion sticks just in case. Mark flipped the switch to set the borer going, and the thing began to carve out an impressive hole in the center of the disturbed patch of ground.

The borer hit pay-dirt a little before the marauding creatures came to investigate the source of the new disturbance. There was a hatchway set into the rock that under laid the garden, and it was just beginning to open when Mark turned off the borer and tossed it to one side. As it opened to reveal several of the pale beings, Freddie reached into his pocket and tossed in a flashbang grenade. The effects were instantaneous. The Martians crumpled, shielding their eyes, and all of a sudden the hatchway was left open, apparently unguarded. 

“Do something with them,” growled Mark, and Freddie passed one of the ion sticks over to him as he bent to stun the one closest to him. Mark stunned the other, and gestured to the dark maw that was the way down into what Jensen was thinking of as hell.

The three men looked at each other for a minute or two, a little unsure of what to do next, but then Jensen muttered, “Fuck it,” and moved forward, heading down into the darkness.

“Shit,” Mark had a small flashlight, and he hurried after Jensen, concerned that they needed to see where they were going if they were going to do this. Fred let out a low laugh and brought up the rear, muttering to himself about damned impetuous kids.

“Just what do you suppose you’re going to do down here?” Mark said gently.

“Gonna find Jared and bring him home.” Jensen was very definite as he stomped forward.

“Come on, kiddo. We need to go back and find some more powerful lights, some better weapons and a few more people.” Mark put a hand on Jensen’s shoulder. At first it seemed as if he would shake it off, but then he stopped and nodded. 

“Okay. Let’s go quickly. Don’t wanna lose the opportunity and let them cover the place up again.”

“It’ll be fine. We know it’s here, now. They can’t really move it away, can they?” Mark turned Jensen gently. “Let’s get going. We need to do something about those two creepy Martians too. Tie them up or something.”

Back on the surface they rushed to find the equipment and people they needed. Steve was deeply entranced, but Mike rose to his feet and headed out into the bar with them to help gather things together. Freddie, who seemed to be enjoying the action, stepped behind the bar and picked up the microphone he used to introduce the cabaret. “Okay, folks. We need a bunch of volunteers to come help us with a little problem we seem to have. If you’ve got blasters or mining equipment with you, so much the better.”

There had been several men at the back of the bar playing pool, and now one of them came forward to where they were standing. “My name’s Jeff,” he announced. “What seems to be the problem?”

It was Mark who volunteered an explanation as Jensen hopped from foot to foot, desperate to get back to his search. They’d gathered a fairly comprehensive collection of useful items, from arc lights and flashlights to ropes and weaponry of varying types, including one of the laser knives Jensen had been hoping to buy himself. It turned out to belong to Freddie, who apparently had enough weapons to stock an armory.

The man named Jeff, who had listened to their tale with raised brows, turned to Jensen. “Been coming here since it opened. Don’t wanna see it go down because Chris is out of action. How’s it going with him?”

“He’ll be fine in another hour or so,” said Mike, who had remained with the group rather than returning to Chris and Steve. 

“Can we go?” Jensen was getting more and more anxious, and finally there seemed to be a consensus reached, and the group moved through the bar to return to the garden and rescue Jared if at all possible. Jeff had brought four of his companions with him, and along with Mark and Freddie there were now eight of them. Jensen didn’t know if that would be enough, but it didn’t matter. He would go alone if he needed to. He had to find Jared.

Out in the garden, an odd rumbling sound began to impinge on their senses, and Mark frowned. “Don’t like the sound of that,” he muttered. “We need to get in there right now, before anything bizarre happens.”

Once again, Jensen took the lead, this time armed not only with his little laser pistol but also a large blaster. He was determined that there was no way he’d come out of that tunnel again unless he had Jared with him.

~*~

They moved down the tunnel cautiously, trying as hard as they could to make no sound. There was an deep, sullen pounding ahead of them – the kind of sound that resonated through the bones and rattled the brain in one’s skull after a while. Jensen found it difficult after a while not to walk in rhythm with it, and he could hear the others behind him doing the same.

They’d progressed along the passageway moving ever downwards for about fifteen minutes, when he became aware that there was a slowly growing source of illumination ahead of them. Fred, who was walking immediately behind him reached forwards and gripped his shoulder, indicating that he should extinguish his flashlight, and Jensen nodded, clicking it off and clipping it to his belt. The others did the same, and the whole troop crept forward as speedily as they could whilst still attempting to make no noise.

There were steps cut into the rock, and as Jensen carefully moved down them, he became aware of a constant murmur of complaining voices that overlaid that dull pulsing he’d noticed earlier. They finally emerged onto a kind of gallery that had been cut into the rock, and which overlooked a huge cave. There were more of the white creatures below, strangely manlike, but visibly not human. They were too thin, with long heads that perched atop necks that seemed too weak to carry them and legs that seemed to have too many joints. They were all bent to spokes on an enormous wheel, and as Jensen watched, they slowly turned it, each Martian exerting visibly incredible effort to turn it. He could see another wheel in the distance, and that was also being turned, but along with the now familiar aliens, Jensen could see Jared.

He was pushing the wheel along with the aliens, and didn’t appear to be aware of anything other than his task. Freddie gripped Jensen’s shoulder again as he started forward and leant forward to whisper in his ear. “There aren’t any overseers. They just seem to be programmed. This is just bizarre, but I guess it means we could go fetch him and we might not be noticed.”

Jensen nodded and looked along the gallery for a way down onto the cavern floor. “Let’s go,” he hissed and stepped forward to where he could see a set of ladders leading down.

There seemed to be nothing to stop them all just climbing down to the floor, and as Jensen went, he could see Freddie above him, preparing to descend next. As he hit the cavern floor, he could feel that throbbing rhythm like an ache in his chest, and began to wish it would stop, even though he was certain that it was masking the sound of their arrival. He turned to head in Jared’s direction without waiting for the rest of the group. He’d skirted the first wheel and was making for the second, where Jared was still slowly rotating with his alien companions. Beyond Jared he could spy yet another wheel, and although the majority of the laborers were Martians, he could see several other humans among them. Frowning, he paused, turned to point it out to the others and then froze.

The others had all reached the ground, and there they had frozen, the same vacant expression on their faces that had been on Christian’s. Something cold seemed to trickle down his spine, and he bit his lip, undecided as to what to do. Freddie was frozen in mid stride, and behind him the others were tumbled together in a heap where they had fallen when they’d reached the floor of the cavern and collided without any attempt to save themselves. Finally, he figured that they weren’t moving, and they’d keep. Turning around again, he set out resolutely towards Jared.

Jared showed no sign that he was aware of Jensen as he reached the place where he was straining to turn the vast wheel. Jensen risked voicing an appeal, calling to him, softly, but he made no response, continuing to push mindlessly on at the wheel he was helping to rotate. 

Finally, he gave up his attempt to attract Jared’s attention and darted in to grab hold of his lover’s arm and tug.

Jared let go of the wheel readily enough when pulled away, and when Jensen towed him along he began to walk in the direction he’d been pointed, but he still remained perfectly plastic, giving no sign that he was aware of his surroundings at all. Behind him, the great wheel continued to turn, a little slower without Jared’s assistance, but with no apparent protest from the other workers. Reaching the foot of the ladder, Jensen paused, unsure of what to do, and how to get Jared up to the top. The others looked to be in the same state as Jared, trancelike and motionless, and he wondered for a moment just why he was still able to function when all around them were so obviously under the control of something – or someone.

He thought that he would have to go back and find Steve, maybe see if Steve could help if he remained up on the gallery from where he’d come in. The others hadn’t been affected until they’d reached the main floor of the cavern. Then perhaps between them he could get Jared and the rest of the entranced humans up the ladder and out onto the surface once again. He let go of Jared’s arm and began to move the others aside so he could reach the ladder. He hadn’t gotten far when he heard a harsh sound behind him. Whirling, he saw another Martian, but this one was different in many ways from the ones that were still laboring to turn the wheels.

“Well, fuck!” growled Jensen, taking in the sight. This creature wore a curious metal headpiece, and his eyes – unlike those of the other creatures – were alive and apparently snapping with anger. “Let them go,” Jensen said, pointing to his companions. “Just let them go, and we’ll call it quits.”

The alien continued to advance, and began to raise a long, silvery stick towards him. Jensen was pretty sure that this would not be a good thing to permit, so he raised his blaster and fired, noting with some measure of satisfaction that his target practice during the past few months had paid off. A hole blossomed in the center of the creature’s forehead, and it pitched backwards to lie on its back. The helmet it wore jogged loose and rolled to rest against Jensen’s foot.

The effect was instantaneous. Suddenly the wheels ceased to turn, and a number of the Martians began to straighten up, and a loud hubbub of high pitched sounds filled the cavern. One of them suddenly seemed to notice Jensen and his group of silent companions, gave a sharp cry and pointed. The noise stopped in an instant, and the creatures shrank back in fear.

“Jesus! I feel like Indiana Jones,” muttered Jensen, looking around with wild eyes.

The sudden dead silence was unnerving to Jensen. Gone was the dull, pounding rhythm he’d gotten used to. Gone was the squeal of the turning wheels and the low rumble of whatever machinery they powered. Gone were the chattering, fluting sounds of Martian communication, and all of a sudden, all Jensen could hear was the rapid sound of his own heart beating. 

He cleared his throat, and the sound echoed in the suddenly silent space, and the Martians flinched. Behind him, Freddie twitched, a little of the vacant rigor leaving his expression, and Jeff tumbled over to lie on his back, gasping.

Jensen wheeled around at the sound, and watched hopefully as Jeff stumbled to his feet, shaking his head groggily. “What the fuck happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” said Jensen, who had one eye on the Martians as he tried to assess any menace they may impose. One minute you were there, and then, somehow, you were like them.

“Yeah, I got down to the foot of the ladder, and there was something telling me to stop and wait, go to sleep, because I would have a job to do later.” Jeff scratched his beard. “It was like all of a sudden somebody else was driving, and I had to do what they told me. I just went to sleep.”

Putting two and two together, Jensen began to work out that the creature who had attacked him had been the one that controlled him and possibly all the others too, from Jared to the Martians. It had stopped as he’d shot the alien, and now he nodded, bending to collect the helmet and the silvery rod that it had menaced him with.

Frowning, he put the helmet on, not at all thinking that anything would happen. At first he was convinced that nothing was different, and then he saw a flicker of white, and a Martian flashed into being in front of him.

“Whoa! Jensen took a step back, shocked at the sudden movement. “I didn’t see you coming.” The creature reached to touch Jensen’s hand, and a sudden calm flooded his mind.

“You saved us.” The alien didn’t appear to be speaking, but Jensen heard the words as clearly as if they had been shouted.

“I didn’t know you needed to be saved.” Jensen shrugged, unsure just what he’d done to save this weird little being or his companions.

“We were controlled. Now we are not controlled. We are without the master.” Others of the aliens had scuttled forward, a rolling tide of white that clustered around him. They made the high pitched twittering sounds, but Jensen could hear voices agreeing with the first Martian who had approached him.

“Well, okay, dude.” Jensen shifted uneasily. “If I’ve helped you, that’s a good thing. Can you help me?” There was a surge of agreement from the Martians that seemed pretty much unanimous, and Jensen indicated the still comatose members of his party, and, after a second’s thought, the humans that were dotted around the hall in their trancelike stupor. “I need to get them back to the surface. I don’t think they’re up to climbing ladders in their present state, so can you help me with that?” Mentally, Jensen was wondering how practical it might be to bring the hoverpad down here, but he knew that it wasn’t a real option. The thing was way too big.

It seemed that he had severely misjudged the aliens, because no sooner had they scattered, disappearing off into a shadowy corner on the far side of the cavern, than there was a low humming sound, and first one Martian, then another, and finally a whole crowd of them swooped in to hover before Jensen. They were riding what looked almost the same as Jared’s hoverpad, but there were no apparent controls. Each of the aliens had rounded up a human and they now stood quietly behind their pilots. Their eerie quiescence was beginning to make Jensen feel nervous, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to return Jared to his former, bubbly, competent self. Swallowing with effort past the lump in his throat, Jensen coaxed Jared onto one of the platforms and then turned to help Mark onto another. Jeff hadn’t actually asked what was going on, and for that Jensen was thankful, because he really wasn’t sure that he could explain it.

Between the two of them, because, although Freddie appeared to be less out of it than the others, he was really not up to assisting in the evacuation, they managed to get their little party onto the transport, and Jensen turned to ascend the ladder. Jeff watched him go, and then shrugged his shoulders and followed, and watched as the alien crafts bore their companions up to the ledge where the tunnel began.

Up in the gallery once more, Jensen expected the aliens to unload their cargo, but they didn’t, they merely hovered a few inches above the rocky ground and waited for Jensen to reach the top. Once he’d clambered off the ladder, they fell into formation behind him and waited until he turned and began to make his way back up to Chris’s garden.

Jensen had almost forgotten that he was wearing the helmet now, and communication was coming thick and fast. There had been a leader who had overstepped his bounds and effectively imprisoned them all to his own ends. The race was dying out, sequestered away below the surface of the Tharsis plateau, dwelling in the caves that would contain enough atmosphere for them to breathe.

“We are old. We know that we are reaching the end of our time, but we are not slaves.” The last thought was from the alien that bore Jared behind him on his transport – Jensen was thinking of them as new and improved hoverpads and was already sure that Jared would be all over them if he woke up. When he woke up, he amended himself. Jared would wake up; he had to.

Jared was the single fly in his ointment. Until Jared woke up and Jensen could see those dimples, and bask in the love that shone from his lover’s eyes, Jensen couldn’t feel complete. Okay, so he’d been a little cranky with Jared lately, wishing he’d stop demanding that he change to fit Jared instead of allowing him to be himself, but now Jensen knew that he would do anything it took to bring him back to himself. He prayed that it would happen and deep down he knew that it might not.

There was a wash of thought over him, caressing him as he fretted. “You will have what you need. You saved us. We wish to help in return.” It didn’t ease his mind in the slightest.

Emerging from the darkness into the bright lights cast by Christian’s LEDs, the whole party paused as Jensen turned to look at them and frown. “What the fuck!” he finally murmured. “In for a penny.” He turned to Jeff. “Best way is to take ‘em all in and introduce ‘em to Steve. God, I hope Michael doesn’t charge by the hour, because he’s gonna be real busy for the next… oh, I dunno, ten years?”

“Might as well,” nodded Jeff. “It’s like making the proverbial omelet, you have to break a few eggs here and there or it doesn’t work.”

That just about summed things up, thought Jensen. Turning to the Martians, he studied them carefully. Finally, knowing that he couldn’t avoid things any longer, he mumbled, “Will you come and visit our cave? You will be welcomed there.”

There was discussion, Jensen could sense it, although he couldn’t follow the complexities of it. Finally the one he had begun to think of as his own particular Martian slid his craft forward so he could put a hand on Jensen’s shoulder. “We will come,” was all he said.

~*~

The trip down the stairs and along the passageway to Steve’s resort was almost worthy of its own comic strip. Jensen felt like the Pied Piper, or better yet, a mother duck, leading her ducklings to the water through endless hazards, and actually began to giggle out of sheer nervous exhaustion until Jeff slapped him round the back of the head and told him not to spoil it now, since he’d done so well so far. After that, he kept his need for hysterical laughter to himself.

As they reached the main door to the bar, Jensen held up his hand. “I want you to wait a minute or so. I need to go warn them that we’re suddenly ambassadors to the first nation of Mars.”

“Way to sound important!” Jeff snickered. “Tell me, have you ever thought about going into politics?”

“Not so you’d notice,” said Jensen, then paused, suddenly struck. “Why? Would you vote for me?” He caught sight of the horde of eyes fixed on his, awaiting instructions and suddenly felt as if he had made light of the situation. “I’m not going to go native and take over leadership of our little Martian friends. I think the only reason I can communicate with them is this helmet. Suppose it broke or sprang a leak or something. The poor guys would be totally without any kind of help.” He spread his hands. “Besides, they know better than I do what they need. They don’t need me to interfere.”

Turning the corner and entering the bar was one of the hardest things Jensen had ever had to do. He’d never really cared for crowds, and he thought he’d be lucky if nobody started firing at him when he went into the bar. He sent a message to the alien phalanx behind him to stay there for a moment and beckoned Jeff to go with him into the bar to find Steve.

In fact, the first person he saw on entry was Mike, who was sitting at the bar with an improbably luminous cocktail in his hand. Looking up to see Jensen, he rose to his feet. “Did you find him?”

“Yeah.” Jensen nodded. “I’ve found them all.”

“All?” Mike frowned. “What all are you talking about?”

“You said a whole bunch of people went missing from down at MarsPort.” Jensen spread his hands and tried to look conciliatory. “Don’t panic, okay? Just… don’t.”

“All right.” Mike took another sip of the purple and orange drink he was holding. “Shock me.”

“You got it.” Jensen flashed him a rueful grin and sent an unspoken message to his alien companions to come on in, and before long the bar was crowded with aliens, each carrying one of the entranced Earthmen with it.

Mike’s jaw dropped, although Jensen was far too busy coaxing Jared down onto a stool to pay him more than a single glance. It didn’t take long for the others to unload their passive passengers, and Jensen, who was hoping to avoid any kind of conflict with Steve until he’d discussed what had happened with his host, decided that discretion was the better part of valor since he feared that there might be reprisals against the aliens for what had happened to Christian.

“Okay, guys,” he said to the group of aliens that were waiting patiently for him. “Thanks for your help. Go back and start being free. I’ll come down to see you tomorrow. Okay?”

There was a confusion of voices in his head as the aliens all apparently discussed that at once, and finally the one who had initially approached him did so again. “We wish for you to come.”

“Tomorrow,” said Jensen, a little more firmly. “First I have to… repair my friends here. They are all… broken.”

“They have been beaten down by the will of the Areonome. We ourselves were subdued, but your people are brittle and do not bend the way we do. Their being has been… fractured. I do not think we know how to repair them.”

The words – or thoughts – sent a cold shiver through Jensen, but he thanked them again for their assistance and one by one they left the complex as silently as they’d come. Jeff heaved a sigh of relief and disappeared into the kitchen to find Steve, leaving Mike and Jensen and some 25 comatose humans. Sighing, Jensen began to explain what had happened, and just what the Martian had told him. He showed Mike the helmet, and Mike examined it minutely before giving it back to Jensen and advising him to stow it somewhere safe until they had time to try and understand how it worked. 

Finally, Mike drained his glass. “Well, I found a way to get Chris back on track,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Who am I going to start with first?” He smirked as Jensen grimly pointed to Jared and nodded. “I had a funny feeling you were going to say Jared,” he said. “Okay. Let’s get him into the kitchen. All my gear is there, and I need to get in touch with MarsPort Medical. We’re going to need to ship in a couple more hypno units and at least another physician who knows how to work with space sickness.”

Grabbing Jared’s hand, Jensen had begun to make for the kitchen even before Mike had finished speaking, and as he burst through the doors he found Jeff busily putting the coffeemaker on. Chris and Steve were sitting, wrapped tightly around each other in a way that made Jensen feel almost sorry he was going to break them apart. It didn’t prevent him from calling to them as he reached the table where the two of them sat.

“Hey, Chris, are you back?”

“Yeah, monkey boy. I guess you could say that I’m back.” Chris peeled himself away from Steve and went to peer at Jared. “They got Jay?” he asked.

“As you can see.” Jensen nodded. “I’ve made contact with the Martians…”

“Those fuckers…” Steve’s face darkened. “I’m gonna…”

“Hey, wait a minute.” Jensen shoved Steve back into his chair again and swiftly began to relate his version of events all over again, finishing with, “So we’ve got all the guys who have gone missing recently, but Mike’s gonna need some help. He needs to get in touch with MarsPort.”

Steve still looked a little angry, but he slowly subsided as Jensen told his tale. When Mike finally came into the kitchen after examining the rest of his current crop of patients, Steve passed him the radio without another word.

It didn’t take long before the arrangements had been made to ship in more hypno units and another two physicians. At last, Mike turned to Jensen and gave him a nod. “Okay, Jen, you’ve been very patient, and I think we’d better start getting into Jay’s thick head now before you explode in sheer fear and anticipation.”

“Thank goodness.” Jensen breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought you were going to dick around with all the rest of them forever.”

“Patience is a virtue,” smirked Mike, picking up the cable to the hypno-unit and plugging the jack into his neuroport. 

“Patience is vastly overrated, bitch,” growled Jensen as he watched impotently. “What do you need me to do?” 

“There’s nothing you can do right now, kiddo,” Mike said, apologetically. “I’m going to have to go in and unscramble his thought processes before you can do anything, so just sit tight and I’ll be back to you as soon as I can, okay?”

“I guess.” Jensen watched as Mike plugged another jack into Jared, and then sat motionless as he watched Mike fall into the trancelike state he’d grown familiar with that spoke of communication from brain to brain.

He was immobile for all of ten minutes, and then he began to pace.

It was Steve in the end who rose to his feet and came across to grab Jensen’s arm and lead him back into his kitchen prep room. “Here,” he said, handing Jensen a laserblade. “We might as well put all that nervous energy to use. There’s about forty pounds of yams. Get peeling. The crowds will be coming in shortly, and I haven’t even started on dinner.”

The yams kept him busy for an hour or so, and then there were strange, cabbage looking vegetables that smelled of peppermint that he had to chop. After that, Steve set him to kneading dough for some nefarious purpose. All the time, Mike remained silent and entranced, and Jensen began to feel sick.

The other two doctors arrived from MarsPort, bringing with them a pair of nurses and a whole stack of equipment that Mike had requested. By the time they were done, they had pretty much filled the joint, and Steve was beginning to make appetizing smells with the ingredients Jensen had prepared.

It was over five hours later when Mike finally emerged from his stupor. Jared, like Chris before him, had seemed to relax, body less rigid and his face seeming more as if he was sleeping and less as if he was carved out of stone.

“Okay, Jen, it’s your turn now. “We have to hook you in to Jay, because you’re the one with the strongest bond to him, and he’ll respond to you much faster than he will to anyone else.” Mike turned to where Jensen was sitting, extending a jack-plug toward him. “Here we go.”

Jensen sat, wide-eyed and stricken. “I…” He closed his mouth and sat, shaken at Mike’s gesture.

“He doesn’t know,” said Chris. “Better tell him, Jen, ‘cos face it, you ain’t gonna be able to fix what ails him. You don’t have what it takes.”

The words stung Jensen, and he straightened, eyes snapping. “And what does it take?” he asked.

Mike had looked from Jensen to Chris and back, frowning at the way the conversation seemed to have developed an edge to it. “All it would take would be to interface you and Jared. The machine allows you to go mind to mind, so you can start to bring him out of it. This condition is almost like space sickness. When someone trances out and can’t get back by themselves, it needs a friend – someone close to them who can wake them with reminders of their life.”

“Jensen doesn’t have the interface,” said Chris, “He chickened out.”

His words made Jensen flinch. It was true. He’d refused the implant, afraid that somehow he’d be infected by a computer virus or the modern equivalent. The idea of being able to talk directly to machines had set something queasy going in his stomach, and he’d shied away, shooting down the idea every time Jared had asked him. Now it was beginning to look as if he’d taken the easy way out and it would cost him Jared.

“Well, is there anyone that knows him really well? Who is there that really knows Jared?” Mike looked to where Chris and Steve were leaning against the kitchen counter. “Either of you?”

“We were on a different ship,” said Steve. “We met from time to time, but neither of us were really buddies until recently.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” Jensen had been listening to their exchange, and now he put his hands up to his face, and Mike moved forward to pat him on the shoulder. “We need Chad or Sandy, but they’re back on earth, and I don’t know who else…”

At that moment, the two medics who had come with the party from MarsPort came into the kitchen. “A couple of them were barely affected and they have broken out of their trance. Jeff was able to provide some of the personal stuff they needed. The rest are really dehydrated and in poor condition. I’ve left Jake and Genevieve to get them hydrated before we start work.” The speaker was a man who Jensen thought might actually be as tall as Jared. He was very handsome, with kind blue eyes and black hair and he greeted Jensen with a smile. “Hi. I’m Tom,” he said, extending his hand for Jensen to shake. “We didn’t meet when we first came in.”

“And I’m Traci.” The woman who had followed Tom in gave Jensen a sympathetic smile. “And you look like your puppy just died. What’s the problem, sweetie?”

Everyone started speaking at once, until Mike held up a hand for quiet and very briefly summarized the situation. Jensen had moved to sit beside Jared as if his very proximity could somehow wake him from his trance. And as they watched, he scrubbed his eyes repeatedly, trying to remain stoic with little or no success.

As Mike finished relating the situation, Tom nudged Traci, who looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. A silent communication seemed to pass between them, and then she nodded and turned to Jensen.

“So why don’t you get the implant now?” she asked him.

Jensen froze. “How is that even possible?” he asked, momentarily too shocked to feel afraid.

“Traci is a qualified neurosurgeon.” Tom told him, and Jensen felt the chill of fear prickle over his skin. “She can do it.”

“What, here?” Jensen’s voice had moved to the upper registers, and even to himself he sounded like a craven idiot.

“Absolutely.” Traci gave him a reassuring smile and moved over to join him at the table. Pulling out a chair to sit beside him. 

Steve had made foonbean coffee and now came over with mugs for the two of them, along with a plate of sandwiches, which they fell on immediately. Traci moaned in delight as she took a gulp of the coffee and then turned back to Jensen.

“So, what do you think?” She patted him on the shoulder.

“You’d better decide pretty quickly.” Tom joined them, reaching over her to snag a sandwich. “The longer he stays in trance, the harder it will be to get him back out of it again.”

“I… I don’t know.” Jensen closed his eyes. “What happens if I get a virus? What does it entail? I…” The words were tumbling out of him, and he felt as if he couldn’t control them, or stem the tide of them at all. Traci gave him a worried look.

“Virus? What are you talking about, virus?” She shook her head. “Who’s been telling you that you’ll catch a virus?”

“Computers get them all the time.” Jensen felt light headed, as though someone else was working his limbs and he had no say in what they did. He felt stiff, frozen in place. 

The three medics all stared at him, astonished, and it took Chris to break the silence with a snort. “Monkey boy, you really are from the dark ages, aren’t you?”

“Be nice, Chris.” Steve punched his significant other on his arm.

“I am nice,” protested Christian. “Doesn’t mean I can’t call bullshit when I hear it.”

“Children, children,” interjected Tom. “Cool it a moment and just let Traci talk to Jensen.” Chris snorted again, but then nodded and fell quiet.

“There are no viruses of that kind out there, sweetie.” Traci rubbed Jensen’s back in an attempt to reassure him. “There haven’t been any in humans since Yu Chin developed the dopamine based organic firewall fifty years ago.”

“Organic?” Jensen looked confused.

“It’s a chemical that’s produced in your brain,” said Traci. “A simple shot we give at the time of performing the implant stimulates the substantia nigra, which is an area of your brain, one of the ones that produces dopamine, to produce what we call dopamine X. It’s a far better defense mechanism than any engineered firewall. The only danger that implants pose these days are from spending too much time in the virtual world and losing sight of the real one.”

Jensen felt his eyes grow rounder and rounder as he listened to Traci. The idea of someone boring into his head was terrifying, but then so was living without Jared. He stared at his vacant lover for a moment, willing him to snap out of this state he was in and tell him what to do. It didn’t happen, and he was left to make his own agonizing decision.

“I guess I have to do it then,” he said finally, his eyes bright with unshed tears. He could hear Steve let go a breath he’d been holding, and Chris gave him a muttered, “Attaboy!” 

“Oh, sweetie, it’ll be all right; you’ll see.” Traci rose from her seat and left the kitchen, saying something about fetching her equipment, and Tom turned to Mike. 

“Don’t suppose you wanna come give me a hand with the crew outside? There are a couple of them that weren’t too badly dehydrated, and should have enough water in their system now to be able to cope.”

“For sure.” Mike clapped his hands as if he were being offered a treat and got up to follow Tom out into the bar where the two nurses had set up their temporary clinic.

Jensen had pressed himself up against Jared and pulled one limp arm around himself, and Steve went to him. “Jen, you know it isn’t going to be the end of the world, I promise. You know you don’t even need to patch into a computer ever again, once Jay’s back to normal.”

“Yeah,” Jensen replied. “I know.” He rubbed his cheek against Jared’s chest and gave a sad little hiccup, and then sat waiting for Traci to return with the stuff she needed.

It took her almost a half hour to get the things she needed together, and when she returned, she had one of the nurses, Jake, in tow. Jake, who was a tall, very attractive blond, gave him a little wave and stepped towards him. “Hey, bud,” he said. “If it’s okay with you, I’m gonna prep you for the surgery. We need to get you out of your clothes and into scrubs, and I’m going to have to shave a little patch of your hair, right here. “

Numbly, Jensen nodded. It was going to happen; he was resigned to that. “Where are you gonna do it?”

“Oh, the table is just the right height,” announced Traci, grinning at first him and then Steve. “I promise he won’t bleed onto it,” she added to Steve, and then back at Jensen, who had felt his blood run cold. “Sweetie, I’m kidding.”

“Come on.” Jake prompted him to rise from his chair. “Let’s go get you ready. That way you won’t have to worry any more, and everything will be fine.”

Jensen licked suddenly dry lips and tried to swallow. He was going to do this, he told himself. He was going to do it, and he was going to revive Jared, and once he was awake, and alive, and no longer a zombie, he was going to pound on him until he was black and blue for putting him through this. Standing up on shaky legs, he gritted his teeth and followed Jake out to the bar, and through it to the mens’ room.

He returned, shortly, dressed in green scrubs that he thought were probably the only constant thing left over from his time, though they actually did fasten down the back, and he thought that was likely due to some exciting and innovative technology. He was all prepped for the surgery – bladder now empty, and a patch of skin behind his right ear shaven clean. Traci had laid a large, shiny pad of an unfamiliar material out on Steve’s kitchen table, and it lay there, looking somehow sentient. Steve and Chris were nowhere to be seen, although Jared was still sitting where he had been left, and as he climbed up to sit on the pad and then lie down, he reached to touch his lover one last time, reassuring himself that Jared was still warm and alive, and that this would be worthwhile.

He thought he might have zoned out himself for a minute, because when he came to, Traci was speaking. “…going to put you under now, and you’ll be out for as long as it takes for the filaments to form synapses with your brain. Once you wake up, you should be able to join the interface right away.”

There was a cool touch to the back of his neck, and he heard Jake operate a hypospray, and then, mercifully, the world shot away to leave him in a shroud of black velvet.

~*~

Jensen came awake suddenly and completely, sat up in a panic and looked around himself in bewilderment. Wherever this was, it was certainly not Steve’s kitchen table. It seemed to be a bedroom, although it wasn’t one he remembered.

“Oh, awesome.” The little, dark haired nurse who had come with the party from MarsPort had been sitting to his right, and, as he turned to look at her, she set down the book she’d been reading and leaned forward to grab his wrist and take his pulse in the same way nurses had been doing for centuries. “Boss,” she called into the intercom that was on his nightstand, “He just now came to. He seems a little disoriented but otherwise pretty perky.”

“I’ll be right there.” It was undoubtedly Traci’s voice he could hear, and he stretched a little, limbs stiff, as though he’d been in the same position for some time.

“Okay, just lie still ‘til the doc comes to check you out.” The little nurse – he thought he’d heard the others call her Jen – bustled around him, raising the head of the bed and fluffing up pillows before prompting him to lie back against them. “You gave us all a bit of a scare.”

“I did? Why?” Jensen felt fine. “Didn’t the implant thing work?”

“Guess we’ll see when the doc gets here, won’t we?” She pushed a button and a moment or so later Steve came in with a mug of something that was steaming hot and delicious smelling. He placed it down beside the nurse and gave Jensen a worried smile before leaving without a word. He frowned.

“Look, nurse…?”

“Call me Genevieve – or Gen, like everyone else does.” She gave him a reassuring pat and was about to say something when the door opened to reveal Traci.

“Well,” she said. “If it isn’t the sleeping beauty.” She studied the small machine clipped to the headboard and then reached to pull a small cable forward. “Hold still,” she said, and tugged.

As the connector came loose from behind his ear, Jensen gasped. He’d apparently been connected to the machine since waking and hadn’t known it, hadn’t even felt its presence.

“I was starting to get worried about you,” admitted Traci, perching on the edge of his bed and turning to face him. “Synaptic integration usually takes place within a couple of hours.”

“And it took me longer?” Jensen frowned. To him, it seemed as if he’d been spreading himself on Steve’s kitchen table just a few short minutes ago.

“It’s been four days,” murmured Traci. “I’m not sure why. Your physiology doesn’t seem to be any different from the rest of us. We moved you into the sick bay here, because after the first six hours or so Steve wanted his table back.”

“Four days… Jared?” Jensen started upright again. “Is it too late?” For a moment he thought guiltily about his promise to go visit the Martians, but then his worry for Jared took over again, and he shelved the whole thing until later.

“Relax, sweetie. Jared’s fine. He’ll keep for a few more hours. First we have to make sure that you’re feeling okay, and there are no unforeseen side effects.” She nodded to Genevieve, who picked up the mug that Steve had brought and held it out to him. 

“Here. Drink this. It’s got all the good stuff in it to get you back on your feet. Electrolytes and amino acids and all that crazy stuff.” Jensen smirked and took the mug, sipping it experimentally, then closing his eyes and moaning at the way the taste filled his mouth and sent warmth spreading through him. It was spicy chicken soup, and all of a sudden he realized just how hungry he was.

It took him very little time at all to empty the mug, and once the soup was gone he sighed contentedly.

The machine he’d been hooked into had disgorged a report that seemed to consist mostly of incomprehensible strings of figures, but as Traci read through it, she nodded. “Looks like everything worked properly, even though it took longer to do its thing. You’re all set up.”

“So now we can fix Jared?” 

She nodded and turned to Genevieve. “Let Jensen get dressed and then bring him through to Mike. He’s going to do the interface for them and orient Jensen on what needs to happen.”

Genevieve nodded and left the room, and a couple of minutes later, Christian appeared in the doorway bearing Jensen’s clothes. “Hey, monkey boy. You done giving us all heart attacks?”

Jensen snorted. “I guess – at least for the time being.”

“Good deal. You might think that Jay’s pretty, but he makes a piss-poor lawn ornament.” Chris gave him the pile of clothes and clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad you’re okay,” he said as he turned to go.

Jensen fumbled his way out of the scrubs he’d been wearing and pulled on his underwear, hands shaking in his eagerness to get dressed and finally get Jared back. Traci had been collecting the machinery she’d used and stashing it all in a small case that seemed designed to fit it. By the time Jensen was fully dressed, she had stowed it all away.

“Let’s go.” She flashed him a warm smile and led the way out into a passageway that Jensen didn’t recognize and from there back to the bar. Freddie was in his usual place behind the bar, and he applauded as Jensen passed. He could see Jeff and his buddies playing foosball at one of the tables, and in some ways it felt as if nothing had happened and the last few days had been cancelled.

But then, entering the kitchen, the tall, silent form of his partner was a grim testament to the fact that it had been real.

Mike had been leaning against the industrial sonic dish cleaning machine, chatting to Chris, who was busily chopping herbs that filled the air with a pungent scent. Steve was doing something esoteric with what appeared to be a whole pig carcass at one of the counters. Jared sat, still and quiet, a negative presence within the bustling activity that surrounded him.

“Hey, Chewie,” called Chris. “Here comes your knight in shining denim to rescue your ass from limbo. Shake a leg.”

Jared remained as still and silent as before, and Jensen had to touch, had to make sure that he was indeed still living, and not in stasis the way he himself had been for so many years. He could feel the pulse beating under his fingers, and when he pressed Jared’s skin it felt the way it always had. Only his soul seemed to be missing. He turned to Mike. 

“What do I need to do?”

“Take a seat in one of the chairs,” said Mike.

“Possibly it would be good for them to sit in a couple of easy chairs.” Traci seemed to be considering the options. “After all, it took the interface a while to establish. It might take a while for this as well. Jensen’s physiology is subtly different from the norm.”

“Good call.” Mike went to pull Jared to his feet and tugged him over to the small space that Steve had set up as a sitting room. It didn’t take long to get them established, and between Mike and Traci they had everything set up.

“Okay, Jen,” said Mike at last. “I’m gonna plug you in.” He paused, studying Jensen’s face before continuing. All you need to do is look for Jared. He’s hiding somewhere deep in his own mind, and you need to remind him of the things he’s lost. Just bear in mind that he’s probably a little scared to return at the moment.”

“The Martian said that humans break instead of bending. Do you think he’s broken?” Jensen reached to take Jared’s hand, squeezing it even though it remained lax under his touch.

“The others have all come out of it okay, save for the two we had to send back to MarsPort with Tom, but they’re the ones that were in Martian control for the longest, and for the one guy, Rob, it had been three months.” Mike sounded sure, and Jensen felt himself relax a little. “I’m just amazed that he was physically as well as he appeared to be. I’m sure that MarsPort will be able to work with them to bring them back.”

“Okay, man, let’s do it, before I chicken out.” Jensen gave a shaky smile and nodded towards the interface machine that was on the coffee table in front of them. Jared was already hooked up to it, and now Mike came around to Jensen’s side and he felt a click as the jack was plugged into the port behind his ear.

For a few moments it felt as though nothing had happened, and he fought the urge to lift his hand and feel where the cable was plugged into his head, just to make sure it was actually there. Then, slowly, his vision began to gray out, and he found himself apparently floating in a vacuum.

He hovered there, unsure what would happen next, not really knowing how he would be able to find Jared in what seemed to mirror the vast wasteland of space.

“Jared?”

He called Jay’s name, pictured in his mind the last time they’d been together and happy, preparing for takeoff from Tranquility, eager to get going and experience Mars and reunite with their friends.

“Jared? Jay, please… I need you.”

_Jensen could sense Jared somewhere out in the void, and he concentrated, trying with every sense to home in on the man he loved, the man he saw as his lifeline in a world that was not his. He let his emotions take over, felt himself begin to move and at last saw a faint, shimmering light in the deep distance of this nowhere space. Closing his eyes, he willed himself forward. He pictured Jared, prayed for him to be there, felt the love and need he had for his partner permeate him and then his feet touched down onto a hard surface. When he opened his eyes again he could see that he was standing on a flat, featureless plane of gray._

_It should have been dark, but he seemed to be casting his own light, and when he raised an arm to scrub at his face, he could see that he was glowing, a nimbus around him that shone out into the empty place where he stood._

_“Jared?” He cast around, knowing that he had to find Jay, needing that more than anything else he’d ever wanted._

_There! The horizon shimmered, and Jensen began to walk towards the anomaly, feeling the ground firm and flat beneath his feet as he trudged forward._

_The flat gray of the terrain began to change a little, and the ground beneath his feet became gravel, sharp and difficult to walk on. Around him grew stunted trees, black and leafless as they pointed gnarled fingers into the void._

_“Jared?”_

_This time the sound echoed. That was new, and he could see that there were small plants beginning to dot the harsh landscape. He wondered if they would produce gray flowers, or if they would instead become carnivorous and tear at his flesh as he went by._

_He walked faster, and began to sing as he went, wishing he had his guitar with him, and his voice filled the air, reverberating in a satisfying manner that seemed to lighten the atmosphere. Ahead, he could see a house, and the front door of the house was painted a shiny yellow._

_It was the first color he’d seen in this desolate place, and it gave him hope. Jared was closer now, possibly there in the house ahead, and he made for the door, still singing._

_“And when I close my eyes I see you_  
No matter where I am  
I can smell your perfume through these whispering pines  
I'm with your ghost again  
It's a shame about the weather  
I know soon we'll be together  
And I can't wait till then  
I can't wait till then” 

_The song drew to a close, and he cudgeled his brain in an attempt to think of another song that might be appropriate, and as he reached the glossy yellow door, it clicked and swung open to reveal a stairway that went down into darkness, a stairway that looked for all the world like the one that they had traversed to find the Martian’s underground cave. Gritting his teeth, he began to descend._

_“I never knew what it was to be alone, no_  
Cause you were always there for me  
You were always there waiting  
And I’ll come home and I miss your face so  
Smiling down on me  
I close my eyes to see” 

_He was putting all his love, all his longing into the song, and somehow it seemed to shorten the stairway, letting him finally reach the cave that contained the big wheels where he had found Jared back when he’d gone with Freddie and Jeff and the gang to try and rescue him._

_Jared was lying under the wheel he’d been turning, curled into a fetal position, and Jensen gave a little sigh of relief as he hurried forward to gather him up in his arms. “Jay! Oh, God, Jay, I’ve missed you.”_

_Jared’s face was as gray as the landscape outside, his skin waxy and clammy. Jensen pulled him close and kissed cold lips, and dropped a tear onto the impassive face of his lover._

_He sat and held Jared, stroked his hair, kissed his unresponsive mouth, and began to rock him. “I need you to come back for me, Jay. I need you in my life. Don’t leave me alone.”_

_He never knew how long he sat there; he only knew that if it took forever he would remain where he was, because there was nothing worth returning to the real world for if he had to leave Jared behind. He was crying in earnest now, the dam broken now as his eyes dripped tears onto Jared. His chest heaved with desolate sobs, and he cried for himself and the things he’d lost, for Jared and the thought that he too was gone, and for the fate that had reduced him to this sorry state._

_It was a while before he noticed that in the spots where his tears had wet Jared’s face, the color was returning. He began to smooth the tears over it, rubbed his cheek against Jared’s and kissed him again, willing him to kiss back with everything he had._

_“Jen.” The whispered word made him jump, then smile, tears still coming but gentler now, his heartbeat finding a response from the body in his arms._

_“Oh, God, Jay.” Jensen kissed his mouth, his eyelids, the tip of his nose. “Wake up. You’ve got to wake up. I can’t do this without you.” And Jared finally stirred, suddenly warm and vital under Jensen’s hands._

_“Where are we?” Jared gazed around himself, confused._

_“We’re in your head somehow,” Jensen told him. “And the sooner we get back to reality, the happier I’m going to be.”_

_“I don’t understand.” Jared sat up, moving out of Jensen’s hold as he did so and rising to his feet._

_“Simple. They hooked me up to you, and sent me in to talk you out of your coma.” Jensen spread his hands in an expansive gesture. “You got taken by the Martians, and I had to go in and get you back. For a while you were completely out of commission, but I’m hoping that this will work, and you can wake up now.”_

_It was obvious that the wheels were turning in Jared’s head, but he didn’t say anything other than okay and reached for Jensen’s hand, pulling him up to stand beside him._

_“Okay, let’s go,” he said at last, and Jensen tugged him back towards the stairs down which he’d come._

_Outside, the once gray landscape was brightly colored. The trees hung with blossom and the flowers were bright in the luminous air and none of them were gray. Jared looked around him with a smile. “Dude,” he breathed. “Did you do this?”_

_“Nope. Not me. It’s all yours.” Jensen pulled him forward and then paused to watch as a fat bee zig-zagged by on its way to a sweet smelling magnolia. “Pretty, but I’d kinda like to leave it behind.”_

_Nodding, Jared fell into step beside him, and together they moved through the garden and away from the building where Jared’s soul had been incarcerated._

_They’d walked for a couple of minutes, hand in hand, when Jared pulled him to a stop and turned him so they were facing each other. Pulling Jensen close to him, Jared tipped his chin up and pressed a kiss to the softness of his mouth. “You keep on surprising me,” he murmured against Jensen’s lips. “I don’t know what you did, but it seems that you’ve saved my life… again. Thank you.”_

_“I think it’s my job,” husked Jensen, a slightly lop-sided smirk on his face. “Seems to be becoming a habit.” And Jared’s answering grin held so much love in it, that for the first time in what seemed like days, Jensen felt a familiar warmth blossom in his gut and knew that he was happy._

There were clattering sounds and deliciously savory smells coming from the kitchen as Jensen opened his eyes to find Jared smiling back at him, while Mike put away the equipment they’d been hooked into.

Traci came forward then to take a read out of Jensen’s vitals and nodded approvingly. “It took a while, but it looks as if the implant is going to function properly now,” she said. As Jensen, who hadn’t been able to look away from Jared, watched, he could see Jared begin to process just exactly what Jensen had done for him.

“Jen? You didn’t…?” Jared gestured to his interface.

“He most certainly did.” Traci was the one who answered him. “It was hard for him, but he went through it. We thought that we’d lost him when he hadn’t woken up after a couple of days, but he made it. You should be really proud, and rather grateful that someone loves you enough to do that for you.”

“Believe me, I am.” Jared nodded and stood up. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and thank him properly.” Tugging Jensen up to his feet, he turned to make his way out, with Jensen’s hand held firmly in his, through the bar and back to their sleeping quarters.

Back in their room, Jensen stood, uncertain, his fingers playing with the squadron ring that Jared wore on his right hand. “I couldn’t lose you,” he whispered. “I think it would’ve killed me.”

“I can’t believe you did that for me.” Jared cupped his cheek, gazing down at him, so much love in his eyes that Jensen thought he would melt. 

“Neither can I.” Jensen grinned. “So can we not talk about it anymore? I need a shower and something to eat.”

“That sounds like an awesome idea.” Jared pulled him forward and began to undress him. “I could use the same treatment.” His fingers skimmed down Jensen’s newly naked sides, and Jensen felt himself flush, felt his insides warm and somehow too heavy. Reaching up, he fisted his fingers in Jared’s hair and pulled him down to kiss and paused, reveling in the warm gust of Jared’s breath on his lips as he stood there in Jared’s embrace. He was warm, real, alive and breathing, and it was all due to Jensen.

“I love you.”

Jared’s eyes turned soft. “I love you too, so much.” He gave a little laugh. “I keep thinking that you’re fragile, delicate or something, but you’re not, are you? In a lot of ways you’re stronger than I am.” He nodded and slid his fingers around the back of Jensen’s neck, catching Jensen’s mouth with his own, warm, wet, and moaned softly into it as Jensen responded, letting Jared fuck his mouth with his tongue. He sucked it deep, slid his own along it, teasing, wanting, and then Jared’s hands were at his waist, finding the fastenings to his jeans and yanking them down, underwear and all and tugging him forward towards the bed until Jensen tripped over them as they trailed from his ankles. Laughing softly, Jared dumped him onto the bed, hauled them off and tossed them somewhere over his shoulder before crawling over him to drop slow, wet kisses onto his mouth.

“Want you.” The words from Jared’s mouth were hoarse with need, and Jensen thought he’d never heard anything quite so fucking sweet before. Jared’s hands were all over him, big and nimble, mapping out the planes and hollows of his body and pulling him in so he could grind against him, hard cock evident under the scrubs he was wearing.

“You got me.” Jensen can hear a growl in his own voice, a certainty he hadn’t ever known he possessed. “All yours, forever. Do something with me.” 

A soft laugh, and Jared was sliding down to find Jensen’s cock, his own dick hard against Jensen’s leg. He sucked a tongue swirling kiss against the tip of it, making Jensen whimper, and then settled down to suckle on it, drawing it deeper into his mouth with every bob of his head, glazed eyes fixed on his.

At the feel of Jared’s first finger circling his hole, Jensen gasped and spread his legs out wider than before, a flicker of fire tingling its way through his balls and up his spine as Jared pressed it in and crooked it just so.

It took three to stretch him to Jared’s satisfaction, by the end of which time he was panting and writhing on Jared’s hand, begging to be fucked. Rising up to his knees, Jared gazed down at him, his cock dripping in anticipation. 

“Gonna fuck you,” he said, eyes blown black as he stared down at Jensen. 

“Well, do it then.” Jensen giggled. “Been ready for hours. Was starting to think you were gonna fall asleep on me or something.” And Jared thrust into him, pushing deep with his first stroke, bottoming out with his second. To Jensen, it felt as if Jared had come home at last. He rocked upwards, looking for the angle that would give him the most sensation and bit out a litany of curses when he felt Jared’s hard presence slide against it. He slid his fingers into Jared’s hair, pulling him into place so that he could press their mouths together and keening at the feel of his orgasm building at the base of his spine.

It wasn’t going to last. The heat and tension inside Jensen built, tightening him, winding him up like clockwork. Jared’s mouth was on Jensen’s now, not really kissing as he kept on fucking him, too close to really concentrate on things like rhythm and refinement. Jensen swore again, tightened his legs around Jared’s waist and bit his lip as he felt it all reaching meltdown point.

Jared gave a strangled cry and pounded deep into him, and that was the end. Jensen’s cock throbbed once, twice, and his balls, drawn up tight as they would go, twitched, tingled, flooded him with heat as his release tingled through him, shooting along his spine until he was convinced that it had curled his hair.

Above him, Jared was jerking and shuddering through a similar process, and Jensen could feel him pouring his fluids out inside him, warm, wet, and loving and altogether his. 

They lay together afterwards, tangled limbs and sated, happy faces, slowly recovering from their efforts as they murmured gentle love words to each other. Jensen didn’t know how long it was before someone tapped on the door to their room, and they heard Fred’s voice calling that dinner was going to be served in fifteen minutes. He called out an acknowledgement and rolled to his feet with a groan. “Shower,” he said to Jared, smirking. “You stink, and I do too. “ 

Groaning, Jared nodded and got up to follow Jensen into the ‘fresher. “I love the way you smell,” he murmured, patting Jensen’s butt. 

“Pervert!” Jensen gave him a cheeky grin.

“Yep.” Jared was not denying it, and Jensen laughed as he started the shower.

~*~

Dinner was as delicious as always. Neither Jensen nor Jared had eaten much over the past few days, and they couldn’t eat much now, because their enforced fast had shrunk their stomachs, but they both gave it their best shot, and there was a festive mood in the air as the meal drew to a close.

Jensen had been down to visit with the Martians as soon as he could tear himself away from Jared for an hour or so, and he was looking forward to their first visit to the resort later that evening. A section had been created for them, so that they could stay apart from the rest of the audience if they felt the need. He had passed on the helmet to Mike, who was busily examining it with the intention of using the technology to provide the comm implants with translation units if possible. He’d made progress already, and Jensen was dying to try out the additional firmware with which he’d been fitted, although he was convinced that if he’d had a neuroport fitted beforehand, he would have been taken along with Jared rather than rescuing Christian, and everyone would have stayed lost. He was pulled from his reverie by the sound of Chris pushing to his feet.

“Okay now, monkey boy,” murmured Chris as Jensen pushed his plate away, so full that he didn’t believe he’d be able to move again. “Go get your guitar. Showtime is in a half hour or so.”

“Yeah, Jen.” Steve came up behind him and put his hands on Jensen’s shoulders. “Sing for your supper, bitch!”

And Jensen felt a strange lurch in his stomach as everything fell into place for him. He’d been tested and he’d passed. Life was going to proceed as normal, and he was a part of it, no longer an outsider. He gave Jared a soft smile and rose to go and do Chris’s bidding. He was going to sing with his friends, and then he was going to expand his horizons. He’d found himself in a new century somewhat against his will, but now he knew that he belonged here, with Jared and the others. He was going to live it and enjoy it to the fullest.

**Author's Note:**

> I have to say thank you to my betas, spoonlessone and jennylynneh, who were with me every step of the way. Without your help and encouragement this would never have been written. They asked uncomfortable questions and made me work much harder than I expected to.
> 
> I'd like to say thank you to my artist, yuan_fen, who helped me to finally see the Ladybug, and who excited me with her vision for the story. Her talent is undeniable, and I am in awe. Please give her love.
> 
> I want to extend my gratitude and admiration for the organizers of this amazing endeavor, whose hard work, administrative abilities and sheer kindness ensure that we have wonderful stories to read all year, I refer of course to wendy and thehighwaywoman. Thanks for doing this. Please never get tired of it.
> 
> The song Jensen was singing to try and reach Jared in his dreamstate is "In Loving Memory" by Alter Bridge.


End file.
